1 00:00:36,079 --> 00:01:08,920 All right, welcome everybody. We have our good friend doctor Bo Branson rejoining. 2 00:01:10,519 --> 00:01:12,000 And if you're hearing a little bit of echo, doctor Branson, don't 3 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:18,200 worry. I'm gonna mute when you're talking and you won't hear me echoing on 4 00:01:18,239 --> 00:01:19,640 your end. Can you hear me? Okay? Right now, Yeah, 5 00:01:19,680 --> 00:01:23,040 I can hear you. Fine, okay, cool, all right, So 6 00:01:23,840 --> 00:01:26,480 welcome back. For those that don't know, doctor Bo Branson is a good 7 00:01:26,519 --> 00:01:33,560 friend of ours who teaches in Indiana. And remind me of the name of 8 00:01:33,560 --> 00:01:38,560 the school. Sorry, it's Breshah, that's right, excuse me. And 9 00:01:42,079 --> 00:01:47,879 Dr Branson's specialty is analytic philosophy, but he also does a lot of research 10 00:01:47,959 --> 00:01:53,040 into the Cappadocians. His thesis was on particularly Gregory of Nissa and the question 11 00:01:53,280 --> 00:02:00,680 of the Trinity and the logical problem the trinity and the question of the the 12 00:02:00,719 --> 00:02:06,959 monarchy of the Father in Cappadocians, then particularly in Gregor Vanessa. So you 13 00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:10,400 had a new piece out that you've just sent me that will be in a 14 00:02:10,439 --> 00:02:16,840 future publication, and that is four Views on the Trinity. Correct, So 15 00:02:16,919 --> 00:02:23,919 I think the title is one God, three person's four views? Now is 16 00:02:23,960 --> 00:02:28,319 that one God? A reference to the I'm just joking, is that the 17 00:02:30,240 --> 00:02:40,080 reference specifically to William Lane three headed dog God and the the four views, 18 00:02:40,159 --> 00:02:46,120 does that count as a separate entity. They're making it a five headed figure. 19 00:02:46,360 --> 00:02:51,919 So there's the essence, and we're trying to work up to the the 20 00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:59,879 nine person God had Anny him or whoever who said each person of the trinity 21 00:02:59,919 --> 00:03:05,479 is its own trinity or you're muted. I think if you confused energies with 22 00:03:05,560 --> 00:03:08,639 persons, you could say that the seven spirits of God are all hypostaces, 23 00:03:08,680 --> 00:03:13,599 and then you could have a seven. Yeah, we get Yeah, try 24 00:03:13,639 --> 00:03:17,439 to just try to the numbers. Now, the four the four reviews. 25 00:03:19,199 --> 00:03:24,479 So it'll have William Lane, Craig, William Hasker Dale, Tuggy, and 26 00:03:24,560 --> 00:03:34,280 myself. So which will be is interesting and uh, you will be presenting 27 00:03:34,280 --> 00:03:38,400 I assume the monarchical trinitarian view there, correct, Yeah, yeah, so 28 00:03:38,479 --> 00:03:43,919 I the the title of my chapter is God and his Word and his Spirit 29 00:03:44,159 --> 00:03:50,639 are one God, which is a quote from John of Damascus to maybe I'll 30 00:03:50,639 --> 00:03:54,680 say a little bit about it, and just I think you maybe I heard 31 00:03:54,680 --> 00:03:58,960 you say that. In my dissertation I talked about Gregoranis and the Monarchy of 32 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:05,599 the Father. In my dissertation, I really only focused on what are called 33 00:04:05,599 --> 00:04:12,879 the inseparable operations or synergy, so the unity sort of the response that Gregory 34 00:04:12,919 --> 00:04:19,120 Andissa gives into a blavious where he's talking mainly on my interpretation about the energies, 35 00:04:20,079 --> 00:04:24,680 the divine energies, and that that's kind of his answer in that to 36 00:04:24,759 --> 00:04:30,560 the to the challenge, to the to the trinity in that work. Then 37 00:04:30,639 --> 00:04:33,120 later I did a bunch of podcasts or video things about the Monarchy of the 38 00:04:33,160 --> 00:04:38,600 Father that I really didn't talk about it at all in the dissertation. So 39 00:04:38,639 --> 00:04:41,600 some people sort of know me because they've looked at the dissertation, and some 40 00:04:41,639 --> 00:04:45,600 people know me from the videos, and they're sort of like two different things. 41 00:04:45,639 --> 00:04:48,519 And I think a lot of people either think that I don't I reject 42 00:04:48,639 --> 00:04:53,439 one, or I only believe in the other, or or they don't see 43 00:04:53,480 --> 00:04:56,879 how they can fit together or what. So part of what I do in 44 00:04:56,920 --> 00:05:00,040 this in my lead essays, I try to kind of show sort of a 45 00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:04,920 bigger picture, and it's all kind of consolidated just in the lead essays, 46 00:05:04,959 --> 00:05:10,560 So I go through kind of different senses in which you would say there's one 47 00:05:10,639 --> 00:05:16,639 God and so sort of had it all fits together so hopefully right. And 48 00:05:16,680 --> 00:05:19,839 for those that don't know, we'll get into this here in a little bit 49 00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:26,680 with some depth. But basically the responses to Dale Tuggy are in regard to 50 00:05:27,079 --> 00:05:30,399 his Unitarianism. So he is sort of the leading i guess, academic Unitarian, 51 00:05:30,439 --> 00:05:36,040 and that's the position that basically the one God is identical to just the 52 00:05:36,040 --> 00:05:42,920 Father and so there's no other distinctions in the trinity or basically just a form 53 00:05:42,959 --> 00:05:46,079 of arianism. And so if you want to highlight or elucidate any of that, 54 00:05:46,120 --> 00:05:50,800 if I've stated his position, yeah, well he yeah, his view 55 00:05:50,839 --> 00:05:58,360 is even lower Christology, I guess, and then arian is his view is 56 00:05:58,480 --> 00:06:01,560 just that Jesus is a human. They don't like it when you say purely 57 00:06:01,720 --> 00:06:05,519 or they don't like what you say merely human because they're like it was not 58 00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:11,240 merely human. He's awesome, but but but it's still like it's really cool 59 00:06:11,279 --> 00:06:15,639 God. Yeah, he's he's not just a just another dude. But but 60 00:06:15,759 --> 00:06:19,240 yeah, he just thinks Jesus is a is a humans created you know in 61 00:06:20,040 --> 00:06:27,560 four BC or whenever he's born, and you know, uh, anointed by 62 00:06:27,600 --> 00:06:30,759 God. And YadA YadA. But but a creature, right, And I 63 00:06:30,759 --> 00:06:33,759 guess his I I really don't. I don't quite get the view on the 64 00:06:33,759 --> 00:06:39,079 Holy Spirit. But they'll say something like the Holy Spirit is just the Father 65 00:06:39,279 --> 00:06:42,959 in action or something like. It's just kind of talk, so they don't 66 00:06:42,959 --> 00:06:46,879 really Most Unitarians of his, like his ILK, I guess, kind of 67 00:06:47,720 --> 00:06:51,160 don't think of the Holy Spirit as really a separate person. They just think 68 00:06:51,199 --> 00:06:58,079 of him as like an energy or just metaphorical for God doing stuff or something 69 00:06:58,920 --> 00:07:00,879 I'm probably not doing. Just to the idea of anyway, that's that's the 70 00:07:00,959 --> 00:07:06,680 idea. So there's really not a trinity or on his view, Yeah, 71 00:07:06,720 --> 00:07:10,720 I think you said on your lectures, they massage it. They kind of 72 00:07:11,240 --> 00:07:15,240 put it to the side. The question of the spirit. Yeah, I 73 00:07:15,240 --> 00:07:19,199 don't. Yeah, I still don't quite quite get the view. But yeah, 74 00:07:19,240 --> 00:07:25,759 that's that's the his the view he's defending so mainly in the in the 75 00:07:25,800 --> 00:07:28,399 book, I guess to just if you want me to mention kind of what 76 00:07:28,439 --> 00:07:30,360 other people do in the book, I can go to my paper more detail 77 00:07:30,399 --> 00:07:35,879 it. He he just gives kind of like twenty facts about the New Testament 78 00:07:38,800 --> 00:07:46,879 that he thinks all sort of are more expected on the hypothesis that they were 79 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:51,120 unitarians then on the hypothesis that they were trinitarians. So it's mostly just sort 80 00:07:51,160 --> 00:07:54,680 of New Testament stuff, and he's kind of trying to make that case. 81 00:07:54,879 --> 00:08:01,480 And actually William Lane Craig's lead essay, I mean, I'm kind of disappointed 82 00:08:01,480 --> 00:08:05,399 in it in a way, but it ninety something percent of it is just 83 00:08:05,519 --> 00:08:09,360 him talking about the New Testament and the divinity of Christ, which, on 84 00:08:09,399 --> 00:08:15,040 the one hand is nice because it's he's all up on that, you know, 85 00:08:15,319 --> 00:08:20,040 New Testament scholarship and so forth, and he consolidates a lot of scholarship 86 00:08:20,120 --> 00:08:24,600 and summarizes it, and so it's that's nice that he just kind of makes 87 00:08:24,639 --> 00:08:28,000 this big case for the divinity of Christ and then kind of also the Holy 88 00:08:28,079 --> 00:08:31,800 Spirit and spends a little bit of time saying why the Holy Spirit is a 89 00:08:31,839 --> 00:08:35,919 separate, distinct person or whatever. I mean, He's got like, I 90 00:08:35,960 --> 00:08:39,399 don't know, a page and a half or something of like his model of 91 00:08:39,440 --> 00:08:46,039 the Trinity, So just like for me to respond to it, so just 92 00:08:46,120 --> 00:08:50,320 to I guess, I'll say, like William Hasker's response to Craig is like 93 00:08:52,360 --> 00:08:54,200 two pages and he just is like, yeah, I pretty much agree with 94 00:08:54,240 --> 00:09:00,440 all stuff and I so for me, I wanted to say something about his 95 00:09:00,519 --> 00:09:01,600 view of that Trenty, so I kind of had to dig into, you 96 00:09:01,639 --> 00:09:05,919 know, other things that he's written. So anyway, I mean, on 97 00:09:05,919 --> 00:09:11,639 the one hand, it's nice that he's kind of did that, but there's 98 00:09:11,639 --> 00:09:15,399 a little a little weak on the details about his actual view of how what 99 00:09:15,480 --> 00:09:16,840 is the Trinity? Why is it's not trite? He isn't, etcetera. 100 00:09:18,200 --> 00:09:24,960 And William Hasker he has the book I forget what it's called, Metaphysics and 101 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:28,679 the tri Personal God. Yeah, I think I think is that I think 102 00:09:28,720 --> 00:09:31,679 I have that one. Yeah, And he kind of, I mean largely 103 00:09:31,799 --> 00:09:37,519 his lead essay is kind of summarizing what he argues in that book, but 104 00:09:39,320 --> 00:09:41,919 from a little bit different angle. But I see, yeah, well I've 105 00:09:41,960 --> 00:09:45,440 got your say that you send it to me, so I've got it pulled 106 00:09:45,519 --> 00:09:50,000 up here. I thought I had it, and so I'm not blaming you. 107 00:09:50,080 --> 00:09:52,960 It wasn't. It was a misunderstanding. I'm looking at it now and 108 00:09:52,960 --> 00:09:58,919 I say that you are you kind of in the very opening salvo there answered 109 00:10:00,120 --> 00:10:03,039 some of the questions that I had when I called you about thirty minutes ago. 110 00:10:03,200 --> 00:10:05,919 So I had a question about, you know, some of the phraseology 111 00:10:05,960 --> 00:10:09,639 that I remember from John Damascus, like, you know, God and his 112 00:10:09,759 --> 00:10:13,600 word and his Spirit are in reality one God. I remember reading that a 113 00:10:13,600 --> 00:10:16,000 couple of years ago, and so listening to the lectures, I was thinking, 114 00:10:16,360 --> 00:10:20,799 you know, it seems like I remember somebody, maybe Johnamascus, speaking 115 00:10:20,799 --> 00:10:22,360 that way. But before we get into that, one thing I'd like to 116 00:10:22,360 --> 00:10:26,039 point out is that you said, you know, in the in the lectures, 117 00:10:26,039 --> 00:10:28,879 you pointed out that one of the projects that you really want to work 118 00:10:28,919 --> 00:10:35,000 towards, or to do, is to inform the debate that goes on in 119 00:10:35,039 --> 00:10:41,519 the philosophic and analytical sphere about the trinity with history. You can't really divorce 120 00:10:41,279 --> 00:10:50,919 divorce trinitarian theology from particular Church history, but particularly the Cappadocians and their contribution. 121 00:10:50,240 --> 00:10:54,840 So maybe you could speak to that a little bit. Yeah, definitely, 122 00:10:54,559 --> 00:10:58,559 that's I spend a whole chapter in my dissertation talking about that, and 123 00:10:58,720 --> 00:11:07,320 I have my first actually publication was basically a kind of reworking of that chapter 124 00:11:07,440 --> 00:11:15,799 in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, just a paper called ahistoricity in analytic theology, 125 00:11:18,360 --> 00:11:22,879 and so, yeah, I guess my view on that is i'd make 126 00:11:22,919 --> 00:11:28,000 a distinction between what you might call philosophy of religion in a general kind of 127 00:11:28,080 --> 00:11:33,679 sense versus what I would call philosophical theology. So philosophy of religion kind of 128 00:11:33,759 --> 00:11:37,360 ask these very general questions about, you know, is there a God, 129 00:11:37,559 --> 00:11:43,399 is religious belief rational, and so forth, And those are questions that are 130 00:11:45,159 --> 00:11:48,720 a lot of it in reality is sort of tied to a more Western like 131 00:11:48,559 --> 00:11:54,919 Judeo Christian Islamic sort of paradigm or whatever. But it's largely, you know, 132 00:11:54,000 --> 00:11:56,639 like it's pretty general questions that you could just ask, you know, 133 00:11:58,000 --> 00:12:03,759 without worrying too much about what religious tradition you're talking about. But questions in 134 00:12:03,799 --> 00:12:11,200 philosophical theology are really questions about like a particular theological view that's it's always going 135 00:12:11,240 --> 00:12:16,879 to be embedded in some kind of historical tradition, right, So I just 136 00:12:18,279 --> 00:12:22,759 try to argue that it really doesn't make much sense to try to ask these 137 00:12:22,799 --> 00:12:30,080 sorts of questions without worrying about the history of that tradition. Yeah, and 138 00:12:30,360 --> 00:12:33,399 to kind of the summary that I give of it in this paper is just 139 00:12:33,519 --> 00:12:39,039 The basic thing that I argue is what you end up with in analytic philosophy. 140 00:12:39,200 --> 00:12:45,399 I think a lot of the times is just a non secutor argument where 141 00:12:45,440 --> 00:12:50,360 people will say something like, here's my model of the Trinity. My model 142 00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:56,600 is logically consistent, therefore the doctrine of the Trinity is logically consistent. Or 143 00:12:56,679 --> 00:13:00,519 like, my model of the Trinity does X, Y and z, therefore 144 00:13:00,600 --> 00:13:03,679 the doctor of the Trinity does. And it's I mean that just has the 145 00:13:03,759 --> 00:13:09,679 logical form like A is F, therefore B is F. It's like, 146 00:13:09,799 --> 00:13:15,919 well, that's you have to establish that there's some connection between your model of 147 00:13:15,960 --> 00:13:18,320 the trinity and the actual doctrine of the Trinity. Yes, right, and 148 00:13:18,519 --> 00:13:22,879 really no one people might pay lip service to that, but like no one 149 00:13:22,919 --> 00:13:26,679 really tries to do that, or very I shouldn't say no one, but 150 00:13:28,279 --> 00:13:33,240 very few. I will say this about William Hasker. I disagree with some 151 00:13:33,399 --> 00:13:37,559 of his interpretations of Gregor Ivnissa and so forth, but like at least he 152 00:13:39,039 --> 00:13:46,840 tried to do that. William Lane Craig just doesn't care, right not to 153 00:13:46,120 --> 00:13:52,799 kind of poor yeah, I mean, he just explicitly like rejects the Nicene 154 00:13:52,879 --> 00:13:58,960 creed. Then Asian Creed. The Council's right, Well, he's identified as 155 00:13:58,960 --> 00:14:03,000 a Pullinarian for a long time. Yeah, he's up hearing about Christology. 156 00:14:03,080 --> 00:14:03,720 So it's just like, yeah, I just regal. I mean, so 157 00:14:03,799 --> 00:14:07,639 it's just kind of like, yeah, I just who cares? But and 158 00:14:07,759 --> 00:14:11,440 I mean my thing then is like, well, then what is the doctrine 159 00:14:11,440 --> 00:14:13,279 of the trinity? Like what do we mean by that? And that's actually 160 00:14:13,360 --> 00:14:18,080 something that came up in his response to me, which I still have to 161 00:14:18,759 --> 00:14:22,360 We're all supposed to send in our final things by like November or I guess 162 00:14:22,399 --> 00:14:28,360 in October thirty first, so soon to be wrapped up. But but yeah, 163 00:14:28,440 --> 00:14:31,559 my, I mean, he just talks about what's in the Bible, 164 00:14:31,600 --> 00:14:37,879 and basically my my response to that, I don't know how the word count 165 00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:41,639 is getting kind of slim, so I don't know how much I can respond 166 00:14:41,679 --> 00:14:46,919 to him. But but my my basic response there is like, if if 167 00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:52,159 I were to decide at some point that Dale Tuggy was right all along and 168 00:14:52,279 --> 00:14:54,960 like the New Testament doesn't say anything about the divinity of Christ, or if 169 00:14:56,000 --> 00:15:01,440 if I decided what the Bible says about the Trinity doesn't really entail. There's 170 00:15:01,480 --> 00:15:07,000 three divine persons or Jesus is divine or something like that. Would I also 171 00:15:07,159 --> 00:15:11,279 describe Would I describe that belief by saying I now believe that the doctrine of 172 00:15:11,360 --> 00:15:20,039 the Trinity doesn't entail that there are three divine persons. I wouldn't. That 173 00:15:20,240 --> 00:15:24,679 sounds crazy, right? So that seems to mean that I don't use the 174 00:15:24,840 --> 00:15:28,440 phrase the doctrine of the Trinity to just mean whatever the Bible says about the 175 00:15:28,480 --> 00:15:33,039 Trinity or else. If I decided the Bible doesn't really say there's three divine 176 00:15:33,080 --> 00:15:37,799 persons, I'd have to say the doctrine of the Trinity doesn't say there's three 177 00:15:37,840 --> 00:15:43,000 divine persons. But that just seems absurd to me, of course, right. 178 00:15:43,720 --> 00:15:46,879 Instead, I ought to describe that by saying, well, I've just 179 00:15:46,000 --> 00:15:52,919 decided that the Bible doesn't teach the doctrine of the Trinity. Yeah, person, 180 00:15:52,960 --> 00:15:56,080 I just say it doesn't teach the doctor of Trinity. I wouldn't say 181 00:15:56,080 --> 00:16:00,519 the doctrine of the Trinity says there's not three divine persons. It just crazy. 182 00:16:00,720 --> 00:16:04,399 Identified about the Trinity is what the Bible says about the Trinity, rather 183 00:16:04,480 --> 00:16:11,559 than what the church fathers and councils have said that the Bible says about it's 184 00:16:12,120 --> 00:16:17,960 so anyway. To me, it's just it seems obvious that a phrase like 185 00:16:18,200 --> 00:16:23,080 the doctrine of the Trinity refers to kind of the official doctrine that the church. 186 00:16:26,799 --> 00:16:30,000 Uh. And and people always get weird out there like well the Church 187 00:16:30,120 --> 00:16:33,559 isn't infallible, you know, I'm a Protestant and blah blah blah. And 188 00:16:33,720 --> 00:16:36,600 it's like, well, yeah, I mean I don't have to presuppose that 189 00:16:36,679 --> 00:16:41,039 the Church is infallible just to say that's what the phrase means. Like if 190 00:16:41,039 --> 00:16:45,399 we were talking about the doctrine of transubstantiation or the doctrine of like papal supremacy 191 00:16:45,559 --> 00:16:48,960 or something like, I would say, well, the doctrine of transubstantiation is 192 00:16:49,039 --> 00:16:55,000 whatever the Council of Trent or whatever said. It was like, I don't 193 00:16:55,000 --> 00:16:57,080 think they're infallible. I just think that's what that's what the phraser first to 194 00:16:57,279 --> 00:17:00,080 do. It would be like, you know, if I came up with 195 00:17:00,200 --> 00:17:07,039 a model of transubstantiation and was like, yeah, here's my model. Nothing 196 00:17:07,119 --> 00:17:11,920 happens when the priest says says the word like this is my Baptist model of 197 00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:17,960 transubstantiation. It's like that not the doctrine of transubstantiation. It's not like you've 198 00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:21,839 got a little different model or interpretation. It's just you're just you've just abandoned 199 00:17:21,960 --> 00:17:25,200 the doctrine. Yeah, and I wouldn't people like William Lane Craig would just 200 00:17:25,359 --> 00:17:29,200 be honest just say, yeah, I just reject the doctorum of the Trinity. 201 00:17:29,359 --> 00:17:32,200 Like that's that's I think the proper way to describe it is just, 202 00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:34,880 yeah, you reject the Nicene Creed, you reject the counsel, you reject 203 00:17:36,440 --> 00:17:40,880 you have this view that's kind of in the ballpark of the trinity. So 204 00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:44,440 that's nice, but but you just you reject the doctor of the trendy. 205 00:17:44,519 --> 00:17:48,240 Yeah. I think a lot of that's bound up with two different notions of 206 00:17:48,559 --> 00:17:52,200 you know, first of all, presubsition about what the church is. Christianity 207 00:17:52,240 --> 00:17:55,960 in the Church are just this thing that's kind of in process. We're all 208 00:17:56,000 --> 00:17:59,640 trying to figure it out, sort of quasity and humanist notion that's very popular 209 00:17:59,680 --> 00:18:02,440 and not academia. So we're all part of the church and we're all just 210 00:18:02,480 --> 00:18:04,920 trying to kind of figure out what its doctrines are. And so we have 211 00:18:06,039 --> 00:18:10,160 a system building project, which is what a lot of philosophers and academics are 212 00:18:10,200 --> 00:18:12,279 into, which is I'm gonna I'm gonna invent the system that will you know, 213 00:18:12,839 --> 00:18:17,240 solve the problems and I'll make a name in academia or whatever the motivations 214 00:18:17,319 --> 00:18:19,960 might be. But yeah, I think you nailed it there that you know, 215 00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:26,880 it really makes no sense to divorce you know, the actual historic meaning 216 00:18:26,960 --> 00:18:29,920 of the phrases in the terms, right, I mean, you're I think 217 00:18:30,440 --> 00:18:33,079 you hit on two things that I think are totally right there. One is, 218 00:18:33,160 --> 00:18:40,480 I think there's this kind of like job security for philosophers going on like 219 00:18:40,559 --> 00:18:42,079 that is like, yeah, that's what philosophers want to do, Like we 220 00:18:42,319 --> 00:18:48,119 want to build a system and come up with some creative new solution. Like 221 00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:51,880 that's what's going to get a publication because you came up with this great idea 222 00:18:52,039 --> 00:18:57,160 and like to just say, like to do what I basically try to do 223 00:18:57,319 --> 00:19:02,440 is just be like, yeah, here's what these I said centuries ago. 224 00:19:03,119 --> 00:19:07,880 It's fine, Like that's not like that's not a super publishable you know paper. 225 00:19:08,680 --> 00:19:11,279 And the other thing is, yeah, I think this Protestant mindset of 226 00:19:11,480 --> 00:19:17,960 like Chris, I always think of it as like archaeological, like well, 227 00:19:17,960 --> 00:19:18,440 I guess you could think of it in two different way. I mean, 228 00:19:18,720 --> 00:19:25,079 some Protestants come at Christianity from this what I think of as archaeological point of 229 00:19:25,119 --> 00:19:27,640 view, like this, this religion just blew up and died out at some 230 00:19:27,799 --> 00:19:34,720 point when the evil like Pope Vader and Emperor Constantine. You know, I'm 231 00:19:34,799 --> 00:19:40,279 just ruined everything and let's try to reconstruct it. But I think there's also, 232 00:19:40,440 --> 00:19:41,960 yeah, there's also the kind of attitude of yeah, it's this system, 233 00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:47,079 but like it's this incomplete thing that we're still kind of like working on 234 00:19:47,319 --> 00:19:52,359 or whatever. And then yeah, that leads them to want to try to 235 00:19:52,440 --> 00:19:59,200 conceptualize everything in some way so that there's room for their own kind of creative 236 00:19:59,359 --> 00:20:03,440 thinking and philosophizing about things. And I think when someone like me comes along 237 00:20:03,519 --> 00:20:06,559 and was just like, yeah, but now you're just changing the subject and 238 00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:11,960 this is not really the doctum the trinity anymore, they just kind of react 239 00:20:12,039 --> 00:20:15,920 to that. They don't want to do that. So let's get back to 240 00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:22,920 this question of unitarianism and trinitarianism. Because one of the things that you point 241 00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:27,960 out that you know that Dale Tuggy doesn't really address is the model of the 242 00:20:29,039 --> 00:20:33,319 trinitarian philosophy that the Orthodox Church has. He addresses the social view and the 243 00:20:33,359 --> 00:20:41,200 egalitarian view, and the actual historical doctrine is the monarchical trinitarian view, which 244 00:20:41,319 --> 00:20:45,759 is that the Father is the sole arca, source, principle, an ark 245 00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:49,240 et, cetera. And so you're kind of admitting, you know, in 246 00:20:49,279 --> 00:20:53,839 the lectures that he kind of has a point just in that these other models 247 00:20:53,880 --> 00:20:57,599 are not very good, but he's not actually addressing our model. Would you 248 00:20:57,640 --> 00:21:00,960 want to comment on that a little bit? I know this is all happened 249 00:21:00,960 --> 00:21:03,720 for you, but just for our audience, Yeah, for people who haven't 250 00:21:03,839 --> 00:21:11,039 gone through six hours worth of whatever. Yeah. Basically, over and over 251 00:21:11,400 --> 00:21:18,039 in Dale Tuggy's papers that he's published on the Trinity, like the big, 252 00:21:18,440 --> 00:21:23,799 the big central sort of issue that keeps coming up is that he just thinks, 253 00:21:23,839 --> 00:21:29,519 like in the New Testament, God equals the Father, just same things. 254 00:21:29,640 --> 00:21:36,079 There's two different words for the same same guy. Right, And what 255 00:21:36,279 --> 00:21:37,880 I point out in those podcasts of mine, as I say, I mean, 256 00:21:37,920 --> 00:21:41,720 basically he's right like if you if you do just read the New Testament 257 00:21:41,720 --> 00:21:45,440 and like all I mean, this isn't like in some way, it's not 258 00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:51,039 even really controversial. Like any biblical scholar New Testament scholar is going to say, 259 00:21:51,160 --> 00:21:52,599 yeah, that's right. In the New Testament, just you see God, 260 00:21:53,480 --> 00:21:57,039 it probably is referring to the Father. I mean, there's times when 261 00:21:57,119 --> 00:22:03,640 it might refer the Son, and and Tucky addresses that, and he said, 262 00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:06,519 I mean, all of them are sort of controversial for obvious reasons. 263 00:22:06,559 --> 00:22:10,839 But his thing is sort of like, hey, as a Unitarian, he 264 00:22:10,960 --> 00:22:14,039 just says, like, even if I grant you that there's like a half 265 00:22:14,119 --> 00:22:18,839 a dozen or so references or a dozen references to Christ as God as Theos, 266 00:22:19,839 --> 00:22:22,440 there's something like, you know, it's two or three hundred instances of 267 00:22:22,480 --> 00:22:29,440 the word God in the New Testament, like anytime anytime the context, like 268 00:22:29,480 --> 00:22:36,119 aside from those handful that refer to Christ, anytime like the context makes it 269 00:22:36,319 --> 00:22:40,960 clear otherwise it's referring to the Father. So like when you know, when 270 00:22:41,039 --> 00:22:45,920 Paul says the you know, the love of God, the grace of Jesus 271 00:22:47,039 --> 00:22:48,480 Christ, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, right, well, it's 272 00:22:48,480 --> 00:22:53,480 obviously God means Father and then Jesus in the Holy Spirit. And there's there's 273 00:22:53,519 --> 00:22:57,119 plenty of places like this where it's just clear from the context that they're using 274 00:22:57,160 --> 00:23:03,200 the word God and Father sort of changeably. So, but what he does 275 00:23:03,319 --> 00:23:11,240 is he argues that sort of, by definition, Trinitarianism identifies the one God 276 00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:18,400 with the Trinity, and that you can't, like a trinitarian can't identify God 277 00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:22,359 with the Father. Hold on one second, because I haven't. I have 278 00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:27,640 an ornery cat who's about to if you gotta, if you got a blender, 279 00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:32,000 you could stick him in there a blend. I don't want to want 280 00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:36,200 to blend my cat. I just thinking about that. Will it blend? 281 00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:42,720 Guy? On? So let's see. So so yeah, that, I 282 00:23:42,759 --> 00:23:47,400 mean, that's basically what I argue in those in those podcasts and in a 283 00:23:47,480 --> 00:23:52,759 paper that I published in Theologica, One God, the Father. As I 284 00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:57,160 just say, you know, that's not like, that's not just like an 285 00:23:57,279 --> 00:24:06,559 uncontroversial definition that trinitarianism, you know, by definition says God equals Trinity. 286 00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:11,000 And by definition, if you say God equals the Father, then that's unitarianism. 287 00:24:11,079 --> 00:24:15,359 That's you know, that's a substantive kind of claim because I mean, 288 00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:21,240 partly because I'm saying what the doctrine of the Trinity is is not just whatever 289 00:24:21,279 --> 00:24:25,200 you stipulate because that's kind of what your grandma says about the Trinity, or 290 00:24:25,279 --> 00:24:29,839 like that's what's on the First Baptist Church's website about the Trinity. Like we 291 00:24:29,960 --> 00:24:32,799 have to go back and look and see, like what are these guys say? 292 00:24:33,279 --> 00:24:34,640 And what I argue is that you know, when you go back and 293 00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:40,880 look, actually all the Greek fathers kind of speak in the same way, 294 00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:44,559 like they tend to use the word God to just refer to the Father right 295 00:24:45,079 --> 00:24:53,480 a lot, and and seldom the use of the word God to or like 296 00:24:53,599 --> 00:24:56,759 the one God to talk about the Trinity or describe the Trinity as the one 297 00:24:56,839 --> 00:25:03,119 God is something that kind of develops over time and there's sort of a reason 298 00:25:03,279 --> 00:25:06,440 but behind that and so forth, and anyway, I just point out, 299 00:25:06,519 --> 00:25:11,720 like, look, there's there's the The key issue for Trinitarians is like do 300 00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:15,279 you think there are three divine persons there and they all have the divine nature 301 00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:22,480 and they're not there's no aryan equivocation going on or anything, and yet you 302 00:25:22,599 --> 00:25:27,720 still think that there's, uh, there's only one God And you could and 303 00:25:27,799 --> 00:25:30,559 I just say, look, you could you can have a view like that 304 00:25:30,759 --> 00:25:36,240 where you just say God refer the word God refers to the Father, the 305 00:25:36,359 --> 00:25:38,680 one God in some sense of the term God, like, that's the Father, 306 00:25:40,319 --> 00:25:42,720 but the Son and the Holy Spirit have the same divine nature as the 307 00:25:42,839 --> 00:25:48,759 Father. There's no I mean's you know you can you can still do that. 308 00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:53,359 And he and the thing that's weird, I mean the way the way 309 00:25:53,400 --> 00:26:02,599 that he defined Unitarian and Trinitarian in the past really, I mean literally made 310 00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:06,720 it so that you would count as a Unitarian even if you said there are 311 00:26:06,799 --> 00:26:11,559 three fully equally divine persons, YadA YadA, Like if you say God is 312 00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:15,920 the Father, but the Son and the Spirit have the divine nature equally and 313 00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:21,759 fully blah blah blah, you just count as as a Unitarian automatically. And 314 00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:26,559 I criticize that. In this book, he's he's changed his definitions, he's 315 00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:32,400 tweaked them a little bit so that he he's added in that to count as 316 00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:37,799 a Unitarian, you would have to reject the claim that the Son and the 317 00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:42,599 Holy Spirit are separate, distinct, divine persons. So you can't you can't 318 00:26:42,599 --> 00:26:48,279 believe in the divinity of Christ anymore on his view to be a Unitarian. 319 00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:52,839 So that means I'm no longer a Unitarian, I guess so well, and 320 00:26:56,279 --> 00:27:00,440 on yeah, and for the sake of the audience for those that don't know. 321 00:27:00,279 --> 00:27:03,559 One of the reasons that we stress it in the Orthodox Church that the 322 00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:07,640 Father is the one God, the soul, fount archa and so forth, 323 00:27:08,039 --> 00:27:12,599 not just in disputes over the philioquy, but also we would say is pretty 324 00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:18,200 consistently in scripture. As doctor Branson was noting about the New Testament references to, 325 00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:22,839 you know, to the one God, you know, Paul, the 326 00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:26,319 Father Blights. You know, all gifts come down from the Father Blights, 327 00:27:26,559 --> 00:27:30,000 you know, the one God and Father all Lord Jesus Christ. The Creed 328 00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:33,759 says, we believe in one God, the Father, right, Yeah, 329 00:27:33,799 --> 00:27:37,920 that Paul says for us there is one God, the Father, and one 330 00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:41,680 Lord Jesus Christ. And yeah, even the Creed says, I believe in 331 00:27:41,759 --> 00:27:45,480 one God, the Father, Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, right 332 00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:52,200 and so so yeah, one thing that I do in the paper those So 333 00:27:52,279 --> 00:27:56,720 then sometimes people hear that and they think, oh, that means you reject 334 00:27:56,799 --> 00:28:02,119 the view that Jesus is really divine, or you you can't call him God 335 00:28:02,319 --> 00:28:07,119 in any sense, or something like that, And that's that's not the idea 336 00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:11,440 at all. So in this paper, one of the things that I do 337 00:28:11,599 --> 00:28:14,480 is I just kind of go through different senses in which you can use the 338 00:28:14,559 --> 00:28:19,359 word God. So one distinction is sometimes we use the word God as a 339 00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:25,680 subject or as a referring expression. Right, So it's like like you would 340 00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:32,400 say the well like j or you know, the president of the United States 341 00:28:32,559 --> 00:28:36,400 or something like that. It's just you're referring to some individual, right. 342 00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:41,079 Sometimes we use the word God as a predicate, as like a descriptor, 343 00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:44,200 right, so this thing is divine or something. So like you know, 344 00:28:44,279 --> 00:28:49,920 if you say that bail it was the God of the right Philistines who were 345 00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:55,799 whoever he was anyway, or Canaanites, I guess anyway. I mean, 346 00:28:55,839 --> 00:28:57,440 that's just a you know, it's a description like if you or or you 347 00:28:57,480 --> 00:29:03,119 know, like when was it when Elijah's is talking with the prophets of bail, 348 00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:07,839 right, he says, if bail is then such and such or if 349 00:29:07,279 --> 00:29:14,160 you know, if Yahweh is God then or there's a there's an interesting verse 350 00:29:14,319 --> 00:29:19,519 where I think it's to Hezekiah. He's someone says thou art God and not 351 00:29:19,799 --> 00:29:23,720 man? And a lot like in our Bibles, it'll be they always capitalize 352 00:29:23,839 --> 00:29:27,680 God. It's capital G when it's like the true God or something like that 353 00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:30,720 or not they didn't say, sorry, did I say God and not man? 354 00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:36,759 Man and not God? But anyway, it looks like because it's lowercase 355 00:29:36,839 --> 00:29:40,640 in there, man and not God, it looks like you're a human and 356 00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:45,599 you're not this person, this individual. But actually it's it's parallel, right, 357 00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:51,799 It's actually you are human and not divine, is the what's being said. 358 00:29:52,359 --> 00:29:55,039 Even in Hebrew, right, Like the word Adam, you know, 359 00:29:55,160 --> 00:30:02,920 sometimes refers to the individual the first sometime the word Adam just is translated man 360 00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:07,240 because just means a human, right, and so it's it's kind of the 361 00:30:07,279 --> 00:30:11,240 same with God, like sometimes God refers to this some individual, and sometimes 362 00:30:11,279 --> 00:30:15,039 it's just kind of divine. And then I point out there's different senses in 363 00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:19,119 which you can use it as a predicate, Like there's different things that might 364 00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:23,440 mean as a description. So the first thing I talked about having to do 365 00:30:23,519 --> 00:30:32,640 with the monarchy is, you know, early on, well, let me 366 00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:37,240 put it this way. If you if you search through like there's a two 367 00:30:37,799 --> 00:30:42,319 classicists and people use the thing why Greika, which has all these texts from 368 00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:47,000 ancient Greek times all the way up to the fall of Constantinople, and it's 369 00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:49,160 all digitized and you can search through it. Like if you if you search 370 00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:55,519 for the word polythea, which is polytheism, you get like hundreds and hundreds 371 00:30:55,559 --> 00:31:00,880 of hits and going all the way back before Christ and all the way if 372 00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:07,000 you look for the word monothea monotheism, there's like two results and they're both 373 00:31:07,039 --> 00:31:11,640 from like it's like Gregory Palomas and maybe someone else around that time, like 374 00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:17,559 guess you know, in the thirteenth, thirteenth century or whenever it was, 375 00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:22,000 So it's it's barely ever used. So you think, like, well, 376 00:31:22,039 --> 00:31:23,240 what's the deal. I mean, people are talking about polytheism, but they 377 00:31:23,279 --> 00:31:26,200 don't have a word for monotheism. But the thing is, if you go 378 00:31:26,319 --> 00:31:32,240 and look at the places where people talk about monotheism and polytheism, they don't 379 00:31:32,319 --> 00:31:37,599 use the word monotheism. They use the word monarchia. So the contrasting terms 380 00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:44,200 are polytheism versus monarchia. And that goes back all the way to like to 381 00:31:44,359 --> 00:31:48,680 Filow, the Jewish philosopher who was just right before around the time of Christ 382 00:31:51,119 --> 00:31:55,680 and early Christians, when they're worrying about what we would call monotheism. They're 383 00:31:55,960 --> 00:32:00,920 worrying about the monarchia. So like if you read it Pullian again, you 384 00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:08,759 know who's writing against these modalists in the in gets like he talks about, 385 00:32:08,799 --> 00:32:13,079 you know, people using the word monarch He actually kind of makes fun of 386 00:32:13,119 --> 00:32:17,119 people because they're I guess trying to like affect a Greek accent when he and 387 00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:22,720 stuff. And so anyway, the point is like when the when when they're 388 00:32:22,759 --> 00:32:27,400 thinking about is there one God? What they mean is is there one ultimate 389 00:32:27,599 --> 00:32:32,920 source of existence for everything? Right? And so in that sense, uh, 390 00:32:34,799 --> 00:32:37,519 yeah, it's it is just the Father, right. The Father is 391 00:32:37,680 --> 00:32:42,079 the monarchy of the one source. Right, So in that sense, it's 392 00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:46,279 perfectly correct to say there is one God, the Father, right, he's 393 00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:52,240 the one God because he's the one source even of the Son and the Spirit 394 00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:55,079 and that not not in the sense that he created them, not in the 395 00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:59,440 sense that they you know, come into being in time or something, but 396 00:32:59,559 --> 00:33:04,960 in some timeless sense he is the source or the root or the foundation or 397 00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:09,200 the fathers use all these terms like the you know, fountain, the spring 398 00:33:09,319 --> 00:33:15,559 of a fountain. So I just in my response is to tugg I just 399 00:33:15,599 --> 00:33:20,279 say, yeah, that's that's perfectly orthodox to say, right, that there's 400 00:33:20,319 --> 00:33:22,759 one God, the Father in that sense, and that's the sense in which 401 00:33:22,839 --> 00:33:25,640 the Creed say, you know, saying there's one God, the Father. 402 00:33:27,160 --> 00:33:31,160 And even Saint Basil, like when people accused him of being a die theist 403 00:33:31,279 --> 00:33:37,640 or tritheist, he responds by saying, there's one God, because there's one 404 00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:42,680 Father, and that's what's And he even goes on and says, whoever preaches 405 00:33:42,799 --> 00:33:46,640 two first principles preaches two gods, but he says, for us, we 406 00:33:46,839 --> 00:33:52,039 just have one first principle. So we're monotheist, right, we have one 407 00:33:52,119 --> 00:33:57,200 God. There's other senses of the word God too. Where the first thing 408 00:33:57,279 --> 00:34:00,640 I talk about is the divine energies that there's a sense of the word God 409 00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:04,720 where it has to do with a certain kind of power or a certain kind 410 00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:09,719 of activity that God engages in. Gregory and Nissa thinks that that's something like 411 00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:15,440 beholding. There's reasons why I think is that, But anyway, it's not 412 00:34:15,599 --> 00:34:20,920 really important so much what the specific activity is is just that if it predicates 413 00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:24,639 an activity, then that's kind of a different sense of the term God. 414 00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:30,320 And then there's another sense in which it might predicate the divine nature. Which 415 00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:34,719 actually an interesting thing that I found out in doing my research for my dissertation 416 00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:39,280 was all of these pre Nicene church bothers, whenever they talk about what the 417 00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:46,719 word God means, they all deny that the word God used as a predicate, 418 00:34:47,039 --> 00:34:51,360 like, predicates the divine nature of something. They all say, it's 419 00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:53,800 not the nature, it's an activity, it's a certain kind of activity. 420 00:34:54,599 --> 00:34:59,639 It's the Aryans who come up with this and start pushing this idea that it 421 00:35:00,079 --> 00:35:05,519 capes the divine nature because they wanted to use that as an argument against Trinitarians. 422 00:35:05,599 --> 00:35:08,519 So you've got three hypotheses that had the same nature, then that's three 423 00:35:08,639 --> 00:35:15,400 gods because the word God means that nature. Yeah. That that comes up 424 00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:20,519 in the Galwitz book. I think when he goes into the Unomian the way 425 00:35:20,679 --> 00:35:24,360 Unomi is predicated. Uh, you know, we basically says that to call 426 00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:30,760 godfather is to call him basically ingenerate, and so Father just is in generate. 427 00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:35,360 Therefore divine nature just is in generate, and so therefore distinctions must until 428 00:35:35,559 --> 00:35:39,480 you know, being a creature. Yeah, and for Eunumius it's even kind 429 00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:46,039 of crazier because he I mean, he just says this. Well I shouldn't 430 00:35:46,039 --> 00:35:51,239 say whack a doodle on publicly, but anyway, he has a he has 431 00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:54,480 a kind of anyway. He has an extreme view about divine simplicity. So 432 00:35:54,679 --> 00:36:00,400 for him, everything just ends up being the divine essence because God is so 433 00:36:00,800 --> 00:36:07,800 absolutely simple. Whatever you predicate of him is just a divine essence and the 434 00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:13,280 so that's and that's his argument against the capit Ocean view is like, well, 435 00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:17,519 we all agree that the Father is unbegotten, which is kind of their 436 00:36:17,639 --> 00:36:25,039 term for Assey, and everything's identical to everything when it comes to God, 437 00:36:25,159 --> 00:36:30,119 so that has to be the divine nature is just being asse. Right, 438 00:36:30,199 --> 00:36:35,920 And so if you admit the father's asse and the son is not absolutely totally 439 00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:40,119 in every possible sense asse, there's some sense in which he's from the father, 440 00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:45,840 he's begotten from the Father eternally, then he doesn't have the same nature 441 00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:51,079 because there's no And this relates to a lot of the people in our field 442 00:36:51,119 --> 00:36:53,039 because we've had to, you know, deal with a lot of Muslim argumentation, 443 00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:57,199 and you know, me in premise is very close to a lot of 444 00:36:57,239 --> 00:37:01,119 the Muslim argumentation. One thing I would like to point out about this notion 445 00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:07,360 of the Father as source. Another reason this matters is that you eventually get 446 00:37:07,519 --> 00:37:10,599 a different order of theologia, order of theology in the West, which I 447 00:37:10,719 --> 00:37:15,880 really liked the way that you went into the fourth council of concept the noble 448 00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:21,039 that the Roman Catholics accept, and that's one of the first Creedle uses of 449 00:37:21,159 --> 00:37:27,559 that phrase, the one God in three persons. That's an Augustinian shift that 450 00:37:27,639 --> 00:37:30,480 we actually see. And I just wanted to read one quote really quick, 451 00:37:30,559 --> 00:37:34,239 which is people forget this, not you, but people forget that in the 452 00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:37,239 Triads, saying Garia. Pallemist makes a really good point in the Third Triad, 453 00:37:37,639 --> 00:37:42,039 section twelve, where he says that when God spoke to Moses, he 454 00:37:42,159 --> 00:37:45,000 did not say I am Essence. He said I am the one, or 455 00:37:45,199 --> 00:37:50,760 he who is so I am he is. The argument here meaning that the 456 00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:53,679 reason that it's really important to begin our Trinitarian theology with the person of the 457 00:37:53,760 --> 00:38:00,719 Father is that, as I think mayand Or effectively argues this as well as 458 00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:06,800 Latsky does, this makes the starting point of reality and of the trinity hypostatic 459 00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:13,519 personal. It's not beginning with the common Essence, which then tends to lead 460 00:38:13,559 --> 00:38:17,599 over into this modalistic type of view. So could you comment on that as 461 00:38:17,639 --> 00:38:22,960 to why why that is so important to guard this soul source as the person 462 00:38:22,039 --> 00:38:25,960 of the Father, not just the common essence as the unit the principle of 463 00:38:27,039 --> 00:38:32,440 unity. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's really right. And there's you 464 00:38:32,519 --> 00:38:38,480 know, there's this whole Once upon a time people made a bigger distinction between 465 00:38:38,519 --> 00:38:44,800 like Greek and Latin views, and in more recent scholarship people have said, 466 00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:46,079 well, that's kind of an exaggeration. There's really more, you know, 467 00:38:46,119 --> 00:38:52,159 they're they're kind of closer. But I do, I do think that at 468 00:38:52,199 --> 00:38:57,119 a at a sort of deeper level, there really is this. There really 469 00:38:57,199 --> 00:39:06,760 is a difference. So like any any Roman Catholic theologian who actually knows their 470 00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:10,559 theology is gonna say, yeah, we believe in the monarchy of the Father, 471 00:39:12,039 --> 00:39:14,559 right like they're they're gonna, I mean, they're gonna say that like 472 00:39:14,719 --> 00:39:19,800 they and it is I mean, it's official, you know, defeating The 473 00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:22,960 Vatican Clarification admits all of this too, but it does admit at a certain 474 00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:29,159 point in the document, but these two views are still intention Yeah. Yeah, 475 00:39:29,199 --> 00:39:31,480 So I mean any any Catholic is going to say like that, yeah, 476 00:39:31,519 --> 00:39:35,360 the Son is eternally begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit like 477 00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:37,480 eternally proceeds from the Father. They're going to say in the Son. But 478 00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:40,440 point being, they're gonna say, yeah, the Father is like the ultimate 479 00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:45,480 source and YadA, YadA. But the thing about it is like if you 480 00:39:45,719 --> 00:39:50,280 if you look at kind of like a Quinas for example, like his overall 481 00:39:50,400 --> 00:40:00,400 sort of system, it's like it's it's true that the Father is unbegotten and 482 00:40:00,599 --> 00:40:05,559 doesn't proceed, and it's true that the Sun is begotten and the Spirit proceeds 483 00:40:05,679 --> 00:40:09,840 and they're from the Father. But like, at a deeper sort of level, 484 00:40:13,159 --> 00:40:17,159 the way he thinks about things really does start with the divine nature and 485 00:40:17,280 --> 00:40:23,519 this like utter simplicity of the divine nature, and then he's because of that 486 00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:28,480 he g ends up with this issue where like, well, if the divine 487 00:40:28,559 --> 00:40:30,920 nature is so simple, like how do you get to hypostheses like how do 488 00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:36,239 you how do you even get a trinity? And it's it's only it's only 489 00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:42,159 when you have these asymmetric relations that can't like even even a relation that you 490 00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:45,440 know if it's a if it's the sort of relation that like you could bear 491 00:40:45,559 --> 00:40:50,719 to yourself, like the liking relation, like I could like myself or not. 492 00:40:51,079 --> 00:40:53,199 Like you know, if there's something like that that you could bear to 493 00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:57,559 yourself, then that's you don't get a trinity out of that, Like that's 494 00:40:57,639 --> 00:41:00,199 not good enough, right, It's only if there's these relations like being a 495 00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:06,519 father where you can't possibly be a father to yourself. Like so that sort 496 00:41:06,559 --> 00:41:13,519 of prize the divine nature into two hypostases of the one nature or something. 497 00:41:14,039 --> 00:41:17,039 And so then because he's thinking that way, like he's kind of starting with 498 00:41:17,079 --> 00:41:22,719 the divine nature and thinking of it is so simple that then he needs the 499 00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:25,599 filioqu way because you've got to have You've got to so you've got you know, 500 00:41:25,679 --> 00:41:30,880 begetting and spirating a sort of pry apart the Father from the Son and 501 00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:34,880 spirit. But you've got to have something to kind of yank apart the son 502 00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:37,760 and the spirit. So you've got to have a relation in there too, 503 00:41:37,639 --> 00:41:42,039 and that that all comes from. So even though you get this result, 504 00:41:42,119 --> 00:41:45,039 Okay, yeah, the Father you know, begets the son and spirits the 505 00:41:45,119 --> 00:41:49,119 spirit and it's the same. But but the way of thinking about it is 506 00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:54,639 really that you're you're the most fundamental thing in some sense really is the divine 507 00:41:54,760 --> 00:42:00,000 nature, and then it's just you pry these hypostas sees a part, you 508 00:42:00,079 --> 00:42:05,679 know, with with these relations. So that's a very different way really of 509 00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:09,280 thinking about the Trinity than to start with the Father and you say, oky, 510 00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:14,079 we the most fundamental thing that we start with isn't the divine nature. 511 00:42:14,119 --> 00:42:17,320 It's we start with the idea of the person of the Father. And every 512 00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:22,119 hyposthesis has to have a nature, has to be a kind of some kind 513 00:42:22,199 --> 00:42:29,760 of thing and has a hypostatic property, right, some quality that makes that 514 00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:34,840 thing an individual thing. Right, So we start with father, and we've 515 00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:42,760 got automatically a divine nature and the father's hypostatic property fatherhood. And because he's 516 00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:47,599 a father, because that's his hypostatic property, then you get a son off 517 00:42:47,679 --> 00:42:51,239 of that right. So it's not like you start with the divine nature and 518 00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:53,199 then try to yank aparts. Yeah, we don't have to invent relations of 519 00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:58,880 opposition and this kind of weird stuff which would relate to a diyad. There's 520 00:42:58,920 --> 00:43:05,519 no opposition diad a as a opposition is for a diad. And then also 521 00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:13,800 this you have the ability with hypeset of properties to pick out what's particular to 522 00:43:14,599 --> 00:43:20,159 the person and then keeping that balance by whatever else you predicate of God or 523 00:43:20,199 --> 00:43:23,159 the triad in this case is common to all three. And that way you 524 00:43:23,199 --> 00:43:30,920 don't start getting powers or properties that two have that one lacks. And that's 525 00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:34,199 where I think it starts to get into trouble, because even if you were 526 00:43:34,239 --> 00:43:37,360 to posit, say this the becos argument or what some of the Roman Catholics 527 00:43:37,480 --> 00:43:40,599 argue that, well, but what if the sun could be like a secondary 528 00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:46,159 cause underneath the primordial cause of the Father. The problem is that it's not. 529 00:43:46,519 --> 00:43:53,360 It's still granting a subordination in the Holy Spirit, because Holy Spirit doesn't 530 00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:58,559 have even the secondary causal power. He doesn't have that medium power. So 531 00:43:58,639 --> 00:44:01,840 there's still a lack there. And I think, as you've effectively argued in 532 00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:06,840 your lecture, you know, going from Saint Photios, if you're starting to 533 00:44:07,199 --> 00:44:09,320 give powers to two, you might as well give it to all three. 534 00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:15,239 It would make more sense to have cause as something that all three share rather 535 00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:22,599 than two. Yeah, I've actually I've been talking a lot with my friend 536 00:44:22,679 --> 00:44:25,400 Scott Williams, so i'll give a shout out to him. Lately, that. 537 00:44:25,639 --> 00:44:32,360 So he's he does a lot of like Western medieval scholastic philosophy and theology. 538 00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:36,760 He did did his dissertation on Henry of Ghent, and a lot of 539 00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:39,960 it has to do with the Trinity anyway. So he's, yeah, he's 540 00:44:40,039 --> 00:44:49,960 helps me kind of understand the Western view about the philioquay better. I'm still 541 00:44:50,079 --> 00:44:54,480 not sure that it's coherent or not, but one thing was. But I 542 00:44:54,559 --> 00:44:58,519 do, I mean, I do kind of understand a little bit anyway, 543 00:44:58,559 --> 00:45:04,880 a little bit better. And I and I he's he I think some of 544 00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:09,719 the some of the arguments from Orthodox sources like Saint Photius for example, when 545 00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:15,559 you think about it, he's writing very early on before the Plastics really kind 546 00:45:15,599 --> 00:45:19,239 of dig in all this stuff. So there's a lot of his arguments that 547 00:45:19,599 --> 00:45:24,639 that maybe don't apply to some of the later Scholastics because they're you know, 548 00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:30,679 they're sort of formulating their view in response to to him. But but I 549 00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:37,159 do still ultimately I think, I guess, I guess at this point, 550 00:45:37,159 --> 00:45:39,599 I would say, I think, like I have to do more thinking about 551 00:45:39,639 --> 00:45:45,360 it, like maybe there's some maybe there's a way to make it coherent sort 552 00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:52,920 of, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to actually be the Cappadocian's view, 553 00:45:53,480 --> 00:45:57,920 Like if you do come up with the metaphysics, that kind of makes 554 00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:02,159 it all made. So even if you have theoretically median cause argument, first 555 00:46:02,199 --> 00:46:06,719 of all, wouldn't be what's actually in Florence, right, because Florence said, 556 00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:10,199 yeah, that that's the big thing is I yeah that with Florence. 557 00:46:10,239 --> 00:46:15,800 I just I feel like Florence like just took it's just the weirdest. I 558 00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:20,480 just feel like it's such a weird council because it's it's just like any anything 559 00:46:20,719 --> 00:46:24,480 that Orthodox might have been able to say, like well that could maybe be 560 00:46:24,599 --> 00:46:31,719 okay, they're just like we explicitly mean precisely the worst possible interpretation. Yeah, 561 00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:37,599 it explicitly says eternal hypostatic origin from the father and the son as from 562 00:46:37,639 --> 00:46:40,960 a single principle. And that's the that's the problem. So even if there 563 00:46:42,199 --> 00:46:50,519 was some sort of Beco's argumentation about media laws, I don't I don't believe 564 00:46:50,599 --> 00:46:55,320 that. I think that the I think the Orthodox response to that with the 565 00:46:55,480 --> 00:47:07,480 notion of you know, existing with and necessarily existing with doesn't necessitate that you're 566 00:47:07,599 --> 00:47:12,800 the cause, right, So I can relate to something in different ways without 567 00:47:13,199 --> 00:47:19,079 the relations being identical. Right, So I might share a common nature with 568 00:47:19,199 --> 00:47:22,320 other human beings, and I share a common nature with my father, but 569 00:47:22,440 --> 00:47:27,840 my father relates to me in a unique way as my only source. But 570 00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:32,239 because I share the nature of you know, my brother, we have that 571 00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:36,880 same nature, we exist with that same nature, that doesn't make my brother 572 00:47:37,599 --> 00:47:45,400 the cause of my nature. So likewise, even if the Son exists at 573 00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:49,159 the same time as or you know, co eternal with the Holy Spirit, 574 00:47:49,199 --> 00:47:52,880 the Holy Spirit has its existence and is reposed in the son, none of 575 00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:58,840 those phrases equate to the Spirit taking on or because he proceeds through the son. 576 00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:02,320 It doesn't follow that the Son is therefore the cause of his hyposthetic existence, 577 00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:07,719 precisely because it seems like the Stress and the Cappadocians on the Father as 578 00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:10,119 the soul source and cause. And if he's a soul source and cause, 579 00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:15,800 then if there's a perfect son generated, then by necessity, the procession of 580 00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:20,079 the Spirit must also be perfect from the Father. In other words, it 581 00:48:20,119 --> 00:48:23,199 can't be you know, this is a photiin argument. It can't be imperfect 582 00:48:23,199 --> 00:48:25,960 in the sense that, well, the Father does this part of it and 583 00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:29,880 then the Son does this other part of it. Right, it has to 584 00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:31,400 be whole and entire. If it's hole and entire with the sun, then 585 00:48:31,639 --> 00:48:35,480 it follows that its whole and entire and perfect for the spirit. Do you 586 00:48:35,559 --> 00:48:37,679 think that argument still holds? Well, yeah, so, I mean I 587 00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:45,199 think yeah, Like Photius's argument is kind of ironically like, this would be 588 00:48:45,239 --> 00:48:47,559 a problem for divine simplicity, right if the Father causes like part of the 589 00:48:47,639 --> 00:48:51,119 spirit and the Son causes a different part, Like, well, then he's 590 00:48:51,159 --> 00:48:54,800 not simple anymore. What I figured out, I mean, I didn't get 591 00:48:54,880 --> 00:49:00,880 this before, but what Scott William's kind of helping realizes that the way I 592 00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:06,880 guess that they're thinking about this double procession thing is sort of like what what 593 00:49:07,079 --> 00:49:12,480 we would talk about with the inseparable operations odd extra so like the way the 594 00:49:12,559 --> 00:49:16,719 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all sort of jointly cause cause the creation 595 00:49:16,920 --> 00:49:22,320 and they count as one creator, a single creator because and that's another sort 596 00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:25,840 of part of the paper, and my dissertation is like if they have a 597 00:49:25,920 --> 00:49:31,519 single energy, then they that's one creator. They just all three sort of 598 00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:37,119 count as a one, the one creator. And basically they're applying that same 599 00:49:37,199 --> 00:49:42,519 sort of thinking to the procession of the Holy Spirit right Father and side. 600 00:49:42,639 --> 00:49:47,480 But they're collapsing the the movement of the spirit in terms of energetic manifestation, 601 00:49:47,639 --> 00:49:53,480 they're collapsing that into hypostetic origin. And Palomas makes a really strong case that 602 00:49:54,360 --> 00:49:58,440 you know, you have to have three different plane. He goes the three 603 00:49:58,519 --> 00:50:01,000 planes, if I remember correctly, says there's the plane of hyposthetic origin, 604 00:50:01,559 --> 00:50:06,119 which is very strict in that you know, the Father is the sole source, 605 00:50:07,000 --> 00:50:10,920 the son begotten spirit proceeding. And then the next plane of existence is 606 00:50:12,079 --> 00:50:16,400 the procession of the Spirit and the energies. The Spirit proceeds from the Father 607 00:50:16,519 --> 00:50:20,599 through the Son, and thus the energies take the same mood that they have 608 00:50:20,679 --> 00:50:22,760 the same movement from the Father through the Son and the Spirit. And I 609 00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:28,679 think the Capitians say returns to the Father, which I've never understood exactly what 610 00:50:28,840 --> 00:50:30,440 that means, but I think it's I was going to ask you if you 611 00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:35,400 get e lucidate that, but before I ask you about that, you know 612 00:50:35,480 --> 00:50:38,559 that. And then the third plane that Palomos talks about is the economy, 613 00:50:39,199 --> 00:50:44,000 so that those have to all three be distinguished. In his line of argumentation, 614 00:50:45,199 --> 00:50:47,000 what do you do you think that's still kind of the correct model for 615 00:50:47,599 --> 00:50:53,000 this. This what we would say in regard to lions in Florence. Yeah, 616 00:50:53,039 --> 00:50:57,159 I think that last thing you mentioned is is a good point too, 617 00:50:57,320 --> 00:51:01,719 that a lot a lot of times in the West, like Catholics and Protestants 618 00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:08,679 both will do this. They'll they'll think, like, yeah, economic activity 619 00:51:08,760 --> 00:51:15,800 of the Trinity is all kind of like a reflection of something going on in 620 00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:24,039 the imminent Trinity, meaning in other words, meaning you know if the yeah, 621 00:51:24,039 --> 00:51:30,159 if the sun sends the Holy Spirit breathes the spirit into people or something 622 00:51:30,280 --> 00:51:34,199 like into the disciples, then that means that, you know, in eternity 623 00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:37,840 there's this thing going on where, uh, there's this relation between the sun, 624 00:51:38,559 --> 00:51:43,480 like everything that happens in time, in creation, in the economy like 625 00:51:43,679 --> 00:51:51,199 reflects something that's that's true about God just sort of in eternity abstracted a way 626 00:51:51,239 --> 00:51:55,679 of creation. And I have no idea of why they think that, but 627 00:51:55,920 --> 00:52:02,280 it's just kind of like the premise, and it never seems like it's very 628 00:52:02,360 --> 00:52:06,639 well argued. I mean, sometimes people will say something like well, otherwise 629 00:52:06,679 --> 00:52:09,360 we wouldn't have any way, you know, to know anything about the Trinity, 630 00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:15,639 and it seems like well revelation like right, Like like Jesus says the 631 00:52:15,719 --> 00:52:19,239 Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, like, that seems like a way you 632 00:52:19,320 --> 00:52:22,760 could have knowledge that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. Like, So 633 00:52:22,960 --> 00:52:27,639 I I always find that really unconvincing, but it's something that's that they they 634 00:52:27,760 --> 00:52:31,000 often assume, and so I think it is important to point out that that's 635 00:52:32,360 --> 00:52:38,760 there's a distinction between what happens in time versus what happens in eternity. Well, 636 00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:44,679 but he also stresses the distinction between what happens at the level of hypostetic 637 00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:51,880 origin versus energetic manifestation and the movement of the energies. Right, So what 638 00:52:51,960 --> 00:52:57,920 do you think about that? I think it's a pretty good interpretation of the 639 00:52:58,519 --> 00:53:01,679 of the of the Father's because well, what really the way I would describe 640 00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:05,599 it, like with as far as Gregory Nissa, who because I was going 641 00:53:05,679 --> 00:53:08,119 to ask you about the Gregor because yeah, they're basically even at Florence, 642 00:53:08,159 --> 00:53:14,519 they're basically arguing, well, what were the Kalpadocian saying, Yeah, here's 643 00:53:14,559 --> 00:53:16,679 my my view on the on Gregor Nissa, like from a just kind of 644 00:53:16,760 --> 00:53:24,719 scholarly perspective, there. Here's here's kind of the tension. Right. When 645 00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:34,960 Gregor Nissa talks about the hypostatic properties explicitly, he says they are simple and 646 00:53:35,239 --> 00:53:40,400 unsharable. So he says that the usia, the divine nature or essence is 647 00:53:40,559 --> 00:53:46,400 shared all this, persons have the divine nature equally. The hypostatic properties are 648 00:53:47,119 --> 00:53:52,239 simple and unsharable. So and that's important, right. So on the one 649 00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:55,880 hand, it's they're unsharable, right, so if the father has fatherhood, 650 00:53:57,599 --> 00:54:00,199 the son doesn't, the Holy Spirit doesn't. If the Spirit proceeds, than 651 00:54:00,199 --> 00:54:06,119 the father and the son don't proceed. But also he I mean, he 652 00:54:06,199 --> 00:54:10,559 says they're simple, so you can't say so if you said they weren't simple, 653 00:54:10,599 --> 00:54:16,199 they're the idiomata are just unsharable. You. Someone might make the argument, 654 00:54:16,280 --> 00:54:23,079 well, the father's hypostatic property is a conjunction of you know, begetting 655 00:54:23,480 --> 00:54:30,239 but being unbegotten and spirating and not being spiated, right, and all of 656 00:54:30,280 --> 00:54:35,000 that together is what distinguishes him. And then the son, you know, 657 00:54:35,400 --> 00:54:38,639 is begotten, but he spirates the spirit too and is not spirit. And 658 00:54:38,679 --> 00:54:44,079 then the spirit is spirated but doesn't begat and is you know, so you 659 00:54:44,159 --> 00:54:45,159 might say, oh, well, that's fine, they can kind of share 660 00:54:45,320 --> 00:54:50,519 some things, but it's like the whole, the whole big package is unsharable. 661 00:54:51,039 --> 00:54:55,039 But that's not what Gregoranisa says. He says they're simple and unsharable. 662 00:54:55,119 --> 00:55:00,280 So in his explicit statement, it's not like you could chop up the Father's 663 00:55:00,400 --> 00:55:05,480 idioma into parts and like share a part of it, just as long as 664 00:55:05,480 --> 00:55:07,719 you don't share all of it. It's just it's simple and unshareable. So 665 00:55:07,960 --> 00:55:12,119 just and then elsewhere, he says, when it you know, when it 666 00:55:12,199 --> 00:55:15,239 comes to the USA, they've got the whole lusia in common. But he 667 00:55:15,320 --> 00:55:20,199 says, when we're talking about the idiomata, the hypostatic properties, he says 668 00:55:20,320 --> 00:55:24,480 they have the persons of the Trinity have nothing in common with respect to the 669 00:55:24,599 --> 00:55:29,280 idiomata, nothing in common, right, So that would yeah, I mean 670 00:55:29,599 --> 00:55:32,559 there's this pretty strong language for you know, for anybody who try to deny 671 00:55:32,679 --> 00:55:36,480 the Father as the sole cause and say, well, but there's also this 672 00:55:36,639 --> 00:55:39,480 other kind of co cause. So that's so that's one sort of piece to 673 00:55:39,559 --> 00:55:45,039 the puzzle, is that when if you're looking at explicit statements about his metaphysics, 674 00:55:45,119 --> 00:55:50,320 it looks like there's just no way to reconcile that with the filia anyway, 675 00:55:50,400 --> 00:55:53,639 not any straightforward obvious way to reconcile it with the Filioqui. The thing 676 00:55:53,719 --> 00:55:59,920 that makes it puzzling and weird is that then he also will say things. 677 00:56:00,719 --> 00:56:06,280 He'll give metaphors and analogies and things that that do look sort of like the 678 00:56:06,360 --> 00:56:12,559 filioque or like some kind of Becos style thing or whatever. So like he'll 679 00:56:12,599 --> 00:56:16,559 give the analogy, he gives the analogy of like you've got a torch that's 680 00:56:16,679 --> 00:56:20,679 just always been burning or whatever, and then you've got a second torch that's 681 00:56:20,719 --> 00:56:23,320 lit off the first, and then a third torch that's lit off the second. 682 00:56:24,159 --> 00:56:28,199 So that looks like, well that then that looks like, okay, 683 00:56:28,280 --> 00:56:31,639 the father begets the son, and then it's really the spirit proceeds from the 684 00:56:31,800 --> 00:56:37,320 son really immediately, but you know, you could sort of look at it 685 00:56:37,360 --> 00:56:40,039 as ultimately from the father or something like that, and that so then that 686 00:56:40,159 --> 00:56:45,000 looks like, well, then it's kind of you know, is that a 687 00:56:45,800 --> 00:56:50,199 what is that from the father through the son or what's going on with that? 688 00:56:51,400 --> 00:56:54,280 And so that's what makes it kind of difficult, I think to interpret 689 00:56:54,360 --> 00:57:00,199 him is because it's he's got explicit statements that just look like that's not it's 690 00:57:00,239 --> 00:57:01,679 not going to work with the phillioqui, and then he's got analogies that are 691 00:57:01,760 --> 00:57:07,480 kind of like, yeah, well how does that fit? So I think 692 00:57:07,639 --> 00:57:15,360 really the interpretation about energetic processions like that's a pretty good way to solve them 693 00:57:16,239 --> 00:57:21,199 that because otherwise you're just kind of left looking at it like what is this? 694 00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:23,159 How does this work? Well, this is important because i'd like to 695 00:57:23,199 --> 00:57:27,159 get your comment on this, not just with Nissa, but the other cavitations 696 00:57:27,199 --> 00:57:30,480 as well. Is that a lot of times when Roman Catholics approach the issue, 697 00:57:30,519 --> 00:57:35,559 they're really just kind of going through country Unomius looking for a few quote 698 00:57:35,599 --> 00:57:38,679 minds or a few things that support the position via analogies. But the problem 699 00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:43,400 is that when you read the totality of the works, you realize, for 700 00:57:43,480 --> 00:57:47,480 example, in sant greg and Nissa's against Eunomius, he's also pointing out that 701 00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:53,760 the Son cannot be a work of the father because he shares the same energies 702 00:57:53,800 --> 00:57:57,800 as the father. So, in other words, the essence energy distinction is 703 00:57:57,840 --> 00:58:00,880 here, and the essence energy distinction is fundamental, again, not just to 704 00:58:01,440 --> 00:58:06,800 Nissa's counture Unomius, but also to Basil's country Unomius as well as Basils on 705 00:58:06,800 --> 00:58:09,280 the Holy Spirit. The operations of the energies are constantly used as a kind 706 00:58:09,320 --> 00:58:13,559 of argument. Basil says, for example, if the Holy Spirit has all 707 00:58:13,599 --> 00:58:17,000 the same energies as the Father and the Son, then he must therefore share 708 00:58:17,039 --> 00:58:22,360 the same nature because energy is the manifestation or proceeds from the nature that has 709 00:58:22,440 --> 00:58:28,280 that energy. So, in other words, essence energy stinction is so fundamental 710 00:58:28,480 --> 00:58:34,119 to Cappadocians, all three of them, that it's really it's not only a 711 00:58:34,239 --> 00:58:37,480 question of are there a few quotes in Nissa that might sound like philioque, 712 00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:43,159 it's that the theology as a whole is bound up with not just not just 713 00:58:43,320 --> 00:58:49,159 hyposthetic properties and Father has soul found, but also essence energy distinction. Mm 714 00:58:49,239 --> 00:58:51,760 hmmm, No, I totally agree. You know, It's it's one of 715 00:58:51,800 --> 00:58:59,320 these things where I really do, I really do feel like that there there 716 00:58:59,320 --> 00:59:05,880 are Roman athleics that interpret they want to interpret basal and and nisas like not 717 00:59:06,199 --> 00:59:14,519 making the essence synergy distinction, and I just think like that's I mean, 718 00:59:14,679 --> 00:59:17,159 like they feel like maybe they have to to make it work with their theology 719 00:59:17,320 --> 00:59:22,119 or whatever. But I just think it's it's very clear, like it's it 720 00:59:22,199 --> 00:59:28,039 seems very clear, like and the reason if you put it into the context 721 00:59:28,119 --> 00:59:35,400 of the argument again, just think about this. Unomiasay's argument is like premise 722 00:59:35,519 --> 00:59:42,000 one absolute divine simplicity, Like everything we predicate about God is just a predication 723 00:59:42,119 --> 00:59:45,760 of God's essence. There's no energies, there's no access, there's no it 724 00:59:46,159 --> 00:59:51,440 just all has to be different ways of getting at the divine nature, which 725 00:59:51,519 --> 00:59:59,079 is frankly at least as I understand a Quinas like sounds alone. Yeah, 726 00:59:59,280 --> 01:00:02,119 when it comes to the attributes, Yeah, so Aquinas says there is a 727 01:00:02,840 --> 01:00:09,079 real distinction in the strongest possible terms in his theology between the persons. There's 728 01:00:09,159 --> 01:00:15,360 not a real distinction between the attributes compared amongst themselves. And he also says 729 01:00:15,639 --> 01:00:19,599 there's not a real distinction between nature and person. So that would fall into 730 01:00:20,639 --> 01:00:24,800 that's the big problem. Yeah, I've never I mean, I'm I don't 731 01:00:24,880 --> 01:00:29,559 like wele. I don't want to accuse someone like Thomas Aquinas of just being 732 01:00:29,960 --> 01:00:34,239 an idiot and crazy or something. But I'm sure there's I'm sure there's a 733 01:00:34,800 --> 01:00:36,920 way to make him to that. Well, to me, it seems like 734 01:00:37,199 --> 01:00:42,719 there is competing things going on, Like there's the there's this Aquinas that is 735 01:00:42,800 --> 01:00:46,559 saying correct things, you know over here, but then there's another Aquinas that's 736 01:00:46,599 --> 01:00:50,840 kind of like, but we've also got to make august Augustinian ideas work. 737 01:00:51,360 --> 01:00:55,119 I've also got to you know, make these principles of you know, actually 738 01:00:55,199 --> 01:01:00,320 it's it's Neil Platonic ideas of simplicity. I've got to somehow make that work 739 01:01:00,480 --> 01:01:05,000 with you know, this these other things that and so that's where that's my 740 01:01:05,159 --> 01:01:08,159 take on it is that there's basically different Aquinases. Yeah, well that's that 741 01:01:08,320 --> 01:01:15,239 may be. Oh I was gonna I was saying, so with Unomius's argument, 742 01:01:15,360 --> 01:01:20,039 right, it's kind of absolute divine simplicity is premise one. Premise two. 743 01:01:20,599 --> 01:01:28,920 We all acknowledge that the father's unbegotten conclusion, unbegottenness is the divine nature, 744 01:01:29,119 --> 01:01:36,679 damn. So and the the you know, I mean like Aquinas knows, 745 01:01:36,719 --> 01:01:38,360 I mean maybe they have, maybe they have good responses or whatever, 746 01:01:38,480 --> 01:01:44,280 but but the response that you get from the Capit Oceans, from Basil is 747 01:01:45,719 --> 01:01:52,159 Basil just ridicules the idea that everything we predicate about He just says that that's 748 01:01:52,239 --> 01:01:57,119 false from the outset, right, I mean that's was two thirty four or 749 01:01:57,159 --> 01:02:01,039 whatever that well, and and he argues the distinction don't entail composition or division. 750 01:02:01,079 --> 01:02:04,440 And they actually argue that if they did, then you you know, 751 01:02:06,159 --> 01:02:07,920 you couldn't predicate anything. I mean, they actually make a lot of the 752 01:02:07,960 --> 01:02:13,320 Polemit arguments before Palomas. That's why Palmus refers back usually a lot of Cappadocian 753 01:02:13,440 --> 01:02:16,760 argumentation, and Basil even I mean, he's pretty explicitly he says, you 754 01:02:16,800 --> 01:02:20,639 know, there's a difference between the essence and the energies. And he says, 755 01:02:20,760 --> 01:02:24,519 you know, you can't say that God's mercy and justice and his for 756 01:02:24,760 --> 01:02:29,079 knowledge and his active creation, all these things. He says, you know, 757 01:02:29,159 --> 01:02:32,079 are all these just all names for the same thing, Like that's crazy, 758 01:02:32,119 --> 01:02:36,280 and they're all really just the divine nature. And he says, no, 759 01:02:36,440 --> 01:02:38,079 they're all distinct from the divine nature. They're distinct from each other. 760 01:02:38,239 --> 01:02:45,400 There's so his response to the Unomian argument is to give the essence energy distinction, 761 01:02:45,519 --> 01:02:51,039 right. I don't know if you've ever seen have you seen Aquinas's response 762 01:02:51,119 --> 01:02:55,639 to John Damascus on the on the essencenarianstinction, the one where he just says 763 01:02:55,679 --> 01:03:00,679 he's wrong. Well, and he says, E sides mine and I yeah, 764 01:03:00,920 --> 01:03:05,119 he says, he says, uh, we can't posit a distinction between 765 01:03:06,280 --> 01:03:10,880 operation and in essence because number one, that would mean that God has accidents. 766 01:03:10,960 --> 01:03:16,039 And then he says, and my monodes has said so it's basically I'll 767 01:03:16,079 --> 01:03:19,960 just pull out mimaides to So in other words, he's citing Mima and eighties 768 01:03:20,000 --> 01:03:23,000 to reject John Damascus. So I like to pull that one out. But 769 01:03:23,880 --> 01:03:27,280 yeah, yeah, I'll have to look that up. I'll show you. 770 01:03:27,440 --> 01:03:30,480 I've got it over here on my shelf. I'll send you the screenshot. 771 01:03:30,840 --> 01:03:37,280 I was gonna mention because this is this is important about the the filioquid stuff 772 01:03:37,320 --> 01:03:46,000 too. Is when Gregory Nazianzen is responding to Eunomius, So Eunomius asks this 773 01:03:46,280 --> 01:03:53,719 question, is is begetting? So the Campinusians will always do this where they 774 01:03:53,760 --> 01:04:00,719 say, look, natures are individuated by the causal powers so that they bestow 775 01:04:00,840 --> 01:04:04,760 on their bearers, right or the activities that that are associate of the energies 776 01:04:05,000 --> 01:04:10,000 what we call energies. So yeah, if two things have all the same 777 01:04:10,119 --> 01:04:12,840 energies, then that's they're the same nature. Right, So if the fathers, 778 01:04:13,159 --> 01:04:16,039 so the Capitocians are always like, look, here's this kind of challenge, 779 01:04:16,159 --> 01:04:20,800 like, give show us something in the scriptures that's attributed to the father 780 01:04:21,000 --> 01:04:25,559 the father does, but the son doesn't. Or the spirit does, but 781 01:04:25,679 --> 01:04:28,920 the father does, you know something that one does but the omens don't. 782 01:04:29,800 --> 01:04:33,119 And the Unomians did respond, and they said, yeah, begetting, right, 783 01:04:33,239 --> 01:04:38,679 like the father begets the son. That's and so what they were assuming 784 01:04:38,840 --> 01:04:43,679 is that what they what they say is, look, either that's either begetting 785 01:04:43,760 --> 01:04:47,679 either that's God's nature, in which case the father and son just automatically don't 786 01:04:47,719 --> 01:04:51,519 have the same nature because the son doesn't beget, or you know, it's 787 01:04:51,559 --> 01:04:55,920 an energy that the father has the son doesn't, right, or you know 788 01:04:56,199 --> 01:05:01,679 which either way you're kind of you know, wrong way. And Gregory Nazianzen's 789 01:05:01,760 --> 01:05:11,519 response is that he says it's neither. He says that begetting is neither the 790 01:05:11,639 --> 01:05:17,119 divine nature nor an energy. He says it's just a relation. That's just 791 01:05:17,239 --> 01:05:24,280 the really Well, and another point here that the whole argument for the philioque 792 01:05:25,760 --> 01:05:30,880 assumes that we should take begetting and spirating to be energies, to be operations 793 01:05:31,360 --> 01:05:35,519 of the divine. But that's how you get the joint like like spirating as 794 01:05:35,639 --> 01:05:40,400 one principle is you have this argument that, well, the power to spirate 795 01:05:41,519 --> 01:05:45,719 is in the divine nature if that's one of the energies of the divine nature, 796 01:05:45,920 --> 01:05:47,760 right, And so the father and the son both get that power, 797 01:05:48,239 --> 01:05:54,079 and so they both spirate the spirit in just the same way, like just 798 01:05:54,159 --> 01:05:59,119 the same way that that all three persons have the power of creating and foreknoing. 799 01:05:59,280 --> 01:06:01,440 Right, it's equated as a as an energy or a power. And 800 01:06:01,960 --> 01:06:05,679 by the way, I recall the Florence quote is from On the Trinity, 801 01:06:06,000 --> 01:06:11,039 right of Augustine, so that Florence is actually citing one of the sections in 802 01:06:11,400 --> 01:06:15,360 On the Trinity where Augustine is making this argument. So we know in what 803 01:06:15,599 --> 01:06:17,079 sense it's met. It meant, it's meant in the same sense as what 804 01:06:17,159 --> 01:06:24,920 Augustine said, and Augustine collapses, like you said, action into essence in 805 01:06:25,360 --> 01:06:29,639 just this way. Yeah, it's always always been puzzled by that because, 806 01:06:30,559 --> 01:06:36,239 yeah, like the capit Ocean's response to Eunomius is just to reject the kind 807 01:06:36,280 --> 01:06:44,559 of extreme view of divine simplicity that Eunomius has and Augustine. Yeah, Augustine 808 01:06:44,800 --> 01:06:48,480 goes along with Eunomius in all all sorts of ways, and I've never I 809 01:06:48,519 --> 01:06:53,840 don't know if he just kind of didn't because he didn't have access. Well, 810 01:06:53,880 --> 01:06:56,800 I read it. I read a really good paper by a Greek theologian 811 01:06:57,039 --> 01:07:04,000 who argued that Eunomius's arguments or really closely borrowed from Plotinus. So given the 812 01:07:04,079 --> 01:07:08,679 fact that I think even some of on the Trinity kind of even just borrows 813 01:07:08,800 --> 01:07:14,199 directly out of the Neods, yeah yeah, yeah, that might yeah, 814 01:07:14,199 --> 01:07:15,800 it might be that it might just be that he was convinced that that was 815 01:07:16,400 --> 01:07:21,880 that was right. But yeah, I mean, I guess I get what 816 01:07:23,679 --> 01:07:28,719 Augustine's wants to do is to kind of take on board as much as he 817 01:07:28,840 --> 01:07:32,960 kind of as he can from neo Platonism, and so he's going to agree 818 01:07:33,079 --> 01:07:35,320 with you know me is about a lot of stuff and try to sort of 819 01:07:35,360 --> 01:07:40,039 still make it work. But yeah, but so this is what I mean 820 01:07:40,079 --> 01:07:44,239 that that kind of goes back to this point that I feel like, even 821 01:07:44,280 --> 01:07:49,400 if you could, if you can make the philioque makes sense in some way, 822 01:07:49,519 --> 01:07:54,519 Like, I just think you're almost certainly going to be doing it by 823 01:07:54,719 --> 01:07:59,360 not having the capit ocean's view. Well, and let's keep in mind, 824 01:07:59,360 --> 01:08:03,760 as you've argued that the cap of ocean view is really what is codified at 825 01:08:03,800 --> 01:08:08,760 Constantinople one. Correct. Yeah, I mean right, so if you think 826 01:08:08,760 --> 01:08:12,960 about it, yeah, I mean Augustine wasn't at the Second Acumenical Council. 827 01:08:13,079 --> 01:08:16,640 He was, I guess he was going. He was on his way when 828 01:08:16,680 --> 01:08:20,760 he died, but yeah, and and when so yeah, I mean Augustine 829 01:08:20,840 --> 01:08:25,159 was like never at an Acumenical council to talk about his views. Everyone. 830 01:08:25,239 --> 01:08:30,239 I think pretty much any scholar will acknowledge that, like Gregory of Nissa is 831 01:08:30,399 --> 01:08:38,039 really kind of the the mastermind behind the Second Acumenical Council really ultimately, because 832 01:08:38,079 --> 01:08:43,319 Basil had already died just a few years before. Gregor Nazianzen was the president 833 01:08:43,399 --> 01:08:46,439 for a while and then he quit and go, and I think and there's 834 01:08:46,479 --> 01:08:51,960 I mean, there's evidence to show that Nazianzen was kind of disappointed with it, 835 01:08:55,279 --> 01:08:59,319 you know, he I mean specifically that just that you know, the 836 01:08:59,399 --> 01:09:03,800 Creed still doesn't say explicitly that the Holy Spirit is divine it just they kind 837 01:09:03,800 --> 01:09:08,760 of left that a little nebulous, which I think that was a big thing 838 01:09:08,880 --> 01:09:12,279 for him and he I think it was kind of like we could do better 839 01:09:12,319 --> 01:09:15,000 than that. But anyway, Gregor, and this was there the whole time, 840 01:09:15,279 --> 01:09:20,359 was there's a lot of evidence to show that, like his theology was 841 01:09:20,680 --> 01:09:27,840 very very much influential at that well, is it accurate to say all three 842 01:09:27,880 --> 01:09:31,520 of the Competocians had a lot of influence and Nissa was really sort of the 843 01:09:31,600 --> 01:09:34,840 key there? Yeah? Yeah, I mean what really, I mean, 844 01:09:34,960 --> 01:09:41,600 Basil while he was alive, was really kind of the main character in a 845 01:09:41,720 --> 01:09:45,479 sense and all that, and after he passed away, it was sort of 846 01:09:45,640 --> 01:09:48,720 like the mantle fell to Gregory Nissa in a way, and Gregory sort of 847 01:09:48,760 --> 01:09:55,000 felt like, I think he just kind of wanted to defend his brother's theology 848 01:09:55,159 --> 01:09:59,199 and kind of clean up, you know, finish things that he hadn't finished 849 01:09:59,319 --> 01:10:03,119 and so on and so forth. But anyway, there's there's a lot like 850 01:10:03,359 --> 01:10:11,760 after after the council was over, the edict that Emperor Theodosius issues, like 851 01:10:11,920 --> 01:10:18,640 right after the council, like Gregory of Nissa by name is is like Roman 852 01:10:18,800 --> 01:10:24,439 law basically sat at that point said, for you to count as a Catholic 853 01:10:24,640 --> 01:10:29,199 church, you have to be in communion with Gregory of Nissa, Like that's 854 01:10:29,560 --> 01:10:31,920 that's one of the things that so they what they did, they listed people 855 01:10:32,039 --> 01:10:36,880 like the actual individual bishops in each location in different regions, where like if 856 01:10:36,920 --> 01:10:42,920 there's a question about whether this person's theology is sound or not, this person 857 01:10:43,079 --> 01:10:45,960 is who you'll go to. And that actually happened, like Gregor Vanissa was 858 01:10:46,039 --> 01:10:53,399 called on to interview someone, you know about their their trinitarian beliefs. Oh 859 01:10:54,079 --> 01:10:57,760 interesting, Yeah, I mean that's that's really strong because a lot of Roman 860 01:10:57,800 --> 01:11:00,319 Catholics bring that up and they said, where you getting the side that Constantinople 861 01:11:00,359 --> 01:11:05,840 one is, you know this Cappadocian council. And my understanding was that it 862 01:11:06,159 --> 01:11:15,039 wasn't even controversial in terms of the scholarship. Yeah, now let's see you 863 01:11:15,239 --> 01:11:18,560 mentioned by the way, I mean, it's mention this to you to like 864 01:11:18,600 --> 01:11:21,840 as far as like, let's talk about Western Fathers a little bit, because 865 01:11:23,560 --> 01:11:27,680 like Saint Jerome before you go to the Western Father's one question, because I 866 01:11:27,720 --> 01:11:30,680 do want to ask you about Jerome. You did make a good point about 867 01:11:30,920 --> 01:11:35,359 this before you move on from the Florence issue. You had mentioned the scholar 868 01:11:35,479 --> 01:11:40,479 that you were under the Jesuit Father Daily, and you mentioned that, you 869 01:11:40,560 --> 01:11:44,000 know, his admission about his admission about Florence. I think it was very 870 01:11:44,079 --> 01:11:50,279 telling. Yeah, so I when I was in graduate school, everybody told 871 01:11:50,319 --> 01:11:53,800 me when they found out I was Orthodox, like, oh, do you 872 01:11:53,840 --> 01:11:57,119 know Father Daily, You should go talk for it. And I did. 873 01:11:57,199 --> 01:11:59,319 I went, I went and talked to I sat in on a lot of 874 01:11:59,399 --> 01:12:08,760 his Patristics classes. Wonderful human being and a very eminent Patristic scholar. He 875 01:12:09,319 --> 01:12:15,960 was nice enough to be the co director of my dissertation. And yeah, 876 01:12:15,439 --> 01:12:21,800 so he he also was a big person in the I forget now what it's 877 01:12:21,840 --> 01:12:30,000 the anyway, the Orthodox Catholic Ecumenical Dialogue. I forget what the exact name 878 01:12:30,039 --> 01:12:33,760 of the organization is, but anyway, the organization where Orthodox and Catholic kind 879 01:12:33,760 --> 01:12:40,520 of come together and talk about you know, communion and so forth. And 880 01:12:40,640 --> 01:12:44,920 that was another one of his big specialties was actually like Orthodox theology and stuff. 881 01:12:45,680 --> 01:12:51,239 Actually he was callistos Ware was his his dissertation advisor so at Oxford, 882 01:12:51,359 --> 01:12:57,000 so he knows something about Orthodox he is. But anyway, Yeah, one 883 01:12:57,039 --> 01:13:00,279 time we were having lunch and talking about that and got on the top of 884 01:13:00,319 --> 01:13:03,039 the Philioquay and talking about greg Revanissa and like, what was this from the 885 01:13:03,119 --> 01:13:06,680 Father through the son or how is this what's going on? And anyway it 886 01:13:06,760 --> 01:13:11,079 came. It came up the thing about the double procession at Florence, and 887 01:13:13,159 --> 01:13:18,880 he told me his his view was that for the Orthodox and Catholic Church to 888 01:13:18,960 --> 01:13:21,399 come into commune and everything, he said, I think we just have to 889 01:13:21,520 --> 01:13:27,039 drop Florence. And I was like, how do you do that? I 890 01:13:27,079 --> 01:13:30,359 mean, that's an ecumenical council and he just said he said his view was 891 01:13:30,479 --> 01:13:35,840 that the Catholic Church just needs to say that every council they've had since the 892 01:13:35,920 --> 01:13:42,840 Great Schism only counts as a local council and doesn't count as an ecumenical council. 893 01:13:43,720 --> 01:13:47,920 And then that way they could they could say that the the way they 894 01:13:48,000 --> 01:13:53,520 defined the Phillyoquay specifically is double procession, like in Florence, they could say, 895 01:13:53,560 --> 01:13:56,159 well, that was just a local council, so it's not infallible. 896 01:13:57,520 --> 01:14:01,199 It's just kind of our thing and it's not really you know, necessary for 897 01:14:01,520 --> 01:14:04,680 for everyone or whatever, which I yeah, I was kind of I was 898 01:14:04,760 --> 01:14:06,520 kind of shocked when he said that. I was just kind of like, 899 01:14:08,319 --> 01:14:11,079 I mean, that would kind of undo the last thousand That wouldn't undo the 900 01:14:11,159 --> 01:14:14,359 last thousand years. I mean basically Vatican one would be false as well, 901 01:14:14,479 --> 01:14:16,840 because you know, yeah, I mean that's the thing to be. I 902 01:14:16,880 --> 01:14:20,199 mean, it's like, yeah, papal infallibility then would would go out the 903 01:14:20,920 --> 01:14:24,159 right. I mean, not that not that you couldn't sort of bring it 904 01:14:24,239 --> 01:14:29,039 back or something. I mean, Vatican one would be not an acumenical council. 905 01:14:30,399 --> 01:14:32,680 So then yeah, I would bring into question like papal infallibility. And 906 01:14:33,239 --> 01:14:36,880 I just thought, I mean, I was really I was pretty surprised when 907 01:14:36,920 --> 01:14:41,640 I when I heard him say that. But I mean I think he's probably 908 01:14:41,800 --> 01:14:45,000 right that that's I mean, yeah, I mean that the real issue is 909 01:14:45,840 --> 01:14:50,720 the dogmatic statement you know in Florence about double eternal hypesec. That's the key 910 01:14:50,800 --> 01:14:56,039 point here. But yeah, now you were before we go Jerome that I 911 01:14:56,119 --> 01:14:59,239 thought of one other thing, which is that Another issue that comes up in 912 01:14:59,279 --> 01:15:03,680 Aquinas is his statement, uh persona at rolati a person is relation, and 913 01:15:04,039 --> 01:15:09,439 Orthodox theologians have critiqued that for a long time as well, because a relation 914 01:15:09,800 --> 01:15:14,119 is a predicate and a person is a subject, So you can't say that 915 01:15:14,239 --> 01:15:18,239 a relation is the agent or the subject. They might be markers or idio 916 01:15:18,359 --> 01:15:21,680 model, but they're not. They're also not strictly identical. And so that's 917 01:15:21,720 --> 01:15:26,159 again another one of those collapsing issues that we see, I think in Western 918 01:15:27,159 --> 01:15:33,359 simplicity models. Yeah, I feel like that's another one of these areas where 919 01:15:33,359 --> 01:15:40,079 I hesitate to. I don't like to. I don't like to think that 920 01:15:40,680 --> 01:15:45,520 someone like Aquinas is just like an idiot. I got I got this. 921 01:15:45,479 --> 01:15:49,279 Well, I'm not saying he's an idiot. I'm saying that's all. That's 922 01:15:49,319 --> 01:15:54,760 a Losky critique because he studied under digital so and so Losky would be critiquing 923 01:15:54,920 --> 01:15:58,800 presumably a tangel Son in that regard. He's yeah, he's interesting. But 924 01:15:58,960 --> 01:16:03,199 I any so I try to I like to want to try to come up 925 01:16:03,239 --> 01:16:10,680 with a charitable interpretation of someone. So a lot of times I just look 926 01:16:10,680 --> 01:16:12,680 at some of these things and I think, I have no idea what this 927 01:16:12,800 --> 01:16:15,680 guy means, because I mean, you take in a straightforward way, it's 928 01:16:15,760 --> 01:16:19,159 like, well, obviously persons are not relations. That doesn't even make any 929 01:16:19,239 --> 01:16:26,600 sense, And even like in terms of kind of scholastic thought, like a 930 01:16:26,720 --> 01:16:30,439 subpositum as they would call it, Like it is not a relat to you, 931 01:16:30,720 --> 01:16:33,880 Like, that's just that doesn't really doesn't really make much, says, 932 01:16:34,119 --> 01:16:38,399 But I mean, one way maybe to interpret it is like I mean, 933 01:16:38,479 --> 01:16:42,159 like Greg Revanissa, for example, is a bundle theorist, so he kind 934 01:16:42,199 --> 01:16:47,960 of thinks of individuals as just collections of properties, which is a total you 935 01:16:48,000 --> 01:16:53,760 know, just I went over this just the other day in my metaphysics class. 936 01:16:54,319 --> 01:16:58,720 Is totally you know, reasonable view. Like some people think that there's 937 01:16:58,760 --> 01:17:03,840 such thing as matter that comes in and individuates things, and some people don't. 938 01:17:05,439 --> 01:17:12,000 Maybe maybe it's just like bundle theory, but there's not much of a 939 01:17:12,079 --> 01:17:15,600 bundle. It's just the relation or something. It still seems kind of weird 940 01:17:15,680 --> 01:17:20,640 to say that a person just is the relation, but well but it means 941 01:17:21,159 --> 01:17:27,279 remember but remember person is also not really distinct from nature. So the distinction 942 01:17:27,439 --> 01:17:31,079 between nature and person that if I recall it, says that Aquinas says, 943 01:17:31,119 --> 01:17:35,880 that's conceptual. He says, the distinction between between the divine person, like 944 01:17:35,960 --> 01:17:40,319 between father and the son is a real distinction, but between the father and 945 01:17:40,359 --> 01:17:44,159 the divine nature is purely conceptual and not really so so we see the so 946 01:17:44,279 --> 01:17:46,279 then the problems are arising again with simplicity. It's like, well, but 947 01:17:47,159 --> 01:17:50,199 then then how would you distinguish the persons? Well, I'm going to introduce 948 01:17:50,800 --> 01:17:56,680 relations, relations of oppositions, relation of origin, a lot of different attempts 949 01:17:56,720 --> 01:18:00,319 at trying to distinguish. Yeah, I do, I mean, I don't 950 01:18:00,319 --> 01:18:01,840 know. So that's that's the sort of thing. Like I feel like I'd 951 01:18:01,920 --> 01:18:05,840 have to sit down and really study Aquinas and see, like, what's can 952 01:18:05,920 --> 01:18:11,960 I come up with some way to make it? Certainly on a straightforward reading, 953 01:18:12,039 --> 01:18:18,880 it does seem pretty hard to hard to reconcile it all. And I 954 01:18:18,920 --> 01:18:24,760 guess one thing I would say is it's you know, there's also that you 955 01:18:24,840 --> 01:18:30,199 know that what Aquinas himself actually meant is one question, And then like how 956 01:18:30,279 --> 01:18:34,680 do Pete Thomas today interpret him? And what kind of you know, what 957 01:18:34,800 --> 01:18:38,560 does it sound like? And how do people make sense up today? Is 958 01:18:38,640 --> 01:18:42,239 kind of another, because there's a lot there are I mean, there there 959 01:18:42,279 --> 01:18:45,359 are Thomas out there who are just like, yeah, the Father, Son 960 01:18:45,439 --> 01:18:48,920 and Holy Spirit are all identical to the Divine Essence, but not to each 961 01:18:48,960 --> 01:18:55,279 other. Yeah, that's kind of a contradiction moving along, and I like, 962 01:18:55,359 --> 01:19:00,479 that's just you know, and it's like, I mean, I hope 963 01:19:00,520 --> 01:19:04,039 that that's not really a Quinas's view because that's just dumb like that. And 964 01:19:04,199 --> 01:19:10,159 I don't I don't know, so anyway, I hesitate to attribute those those 965 01:19:10,239 --> 01:19:15,560 things to Aquinas without really digging through him. But it's but it's like, 966 01:19:15,680 --> 01:19:18,079 I mean, anyway, that interpretation of Aquinas or that kind of version of 967 01:19:18,159 --> 01:19:25,239 Tomism just seems like that's not viable, Like that doesn't make any sense. 968 01:19:25,359 --> 01:19:30,039 So well, I mean it's another us. It kind of relates to the 969 01:19:30,239 --> 01:19:31,840 you know again, like the issue of the Philioquay, Like I mean, 970 01:19:31,920 --> 01:19:39,640 Maximus the Confessor was okay with the Phillyoquay interpreted in a certain way, you 971 01:19:39,720 --> 01:19:45,720 know, but then you get like, at Florence, just let's interpret it 972 01:19:45,960 --> 01:19:51,920 specifically in the way that won't Well. Yeah, and it's even earlier because 973 01:19:51,920 --> 01:19:58,319 it's at twelve seventy four that they first used the Augustinian phrase of the double 974 01:19:58,359 --> 01:20:01,000 eternal hypesite procession. So so I think, yeah, we can grant a 975 01:20:01,039 --> 01:20:08,359 lot of flexibility at least until Florence, because that's really the first dogmatic statement 976 01:20:08,439 --> 01:20:11,359 of the double eternal type. I mean Lions Lions is the first, and 977 01:20:11,399 --> 01:20:15,960 then you get the Palamite response councils and Gregory of Cyprus and all that, 978 01:20:15,119 --> 01:20:19,439 Blackerne and all that, and then you get Florence. But for those that 979 01:20:19,560 --> 01:20:24,720 are curious, the Crisis in Byzantium book by Papa Doccus I think is really 980 01:20:24,760 --> 01:20:28,000 good on that. If if you're in the audience and you want to read 981 01:20:28,079 --> 01:20:30,359 more on that in terms of the issue of the Philly Okay, but maybe 982 01:20:30,439 --> 01:20:33,279 let's move on then to what were you you wanted to say about Saint Jerome 983 01:20:33,319 --> 01:20:38,600 and these these topics briefly about the Western Fathers. I mean sometimes people paint 984 01:20:38,640 --> 01:20:44,920 this is like an East versus West thing, but like like Saint Jerome was 985 01:20:45,079 --> 01:20:50,119 at the Second tech Umenical Council, and Gregory of Nissa was like, while 986 01:20:50,199 --> 01:20:56,199 the council was going on, he was working on a draft of country Unomius 987 01:20:56,279 --> 01:21:00,239 and was like reading drafts of what he was writing to Saint Jerome and Saint 988 01:21:00,319 --> 01:21:05,880 Gregory and Aziens, and like Saint Jerome was all on board with what Gregory 989 01:21:06,199 --> 01:21:11,319 Nissa was saying. And even you know in Jerome has a what whatever it's 990 01:21:11,319 --> 01:21:15,760 called Lives of Illustrious Men or whatever the title is, and talks about Gregory 991 01:21:15,880 --> 01:21:19,880 Nissa and approvingly. And I mean Jerome didn't write a whole lot about the 992 01:21:19,960 --> 01:21:25,840 Trinity directly, but anyway, and it seems like he approved of the Cappitocian 993 01:21:25,960 --> 01:21:30,159 theogy and he was I mean, he was at the council Saint Ambrose. 994 01:21:30,439 --> 01:21:36,880 I mean, you know, famously, Saint Jerome like criticized Saint Ambrose because 995 01:21:36,960 --> 01:21:42,279 he's just basically said, he just plagiarized everything from Saint Basil like, which 996 01:21:42,319 --> 01:21:45,720 is kind of true. Like what I mean, when Saint Ambrose was made 997 01:21:45,760 --> 01:21:48,800 a bishop, like he just kind of gave himself a crash course in theology, 998 01:21:49,039 --> 01:21:53,840 like and a lot of it was just basil like. And if you 999 01:21:53,920 --> 01:21:58,640 read Ambrose, like, his theology is just basically Saint Besis. Yeah, 1000 01:21:58,680 --> 01:22:02,279 that's that's a great point. Yeahs it really is Augustine. And I mean, 1001 01:22:02,319 --> 01:22:08,159 I don't I I used to be more extreme on this, like I 1002 01:22:08,279 --> 01:22:12,399 kind of over time, I always I've kind of grown more to think, 1003 01:22:12,560 --> 01:22:16,800 like you, there's less difference between Augustine and other church fathers, and there's 1004 01:22:16,920 --> 01:22:23,199 less difference between East and West. So but but I still do just think 1005 01:22:23,359 --> 01:22:29,279 like that, there's there's a handful of really key issues where like Augustine is 1006 01:22:29,439 --> 01:22:39,119 just different from Ambrose and everybody that that went before him, Like you know, 1007 01:22:39,279 --> 01:22:44,039 he the thing with divine simplicity and like the essence energy distinction. And 1008 01:22:44,800 --> 01:22:48,800 by the way, this is Ambrose says this. At one point he says 1009 01:22:48,920 --> 01:22:53,319 that the name so just like Greg Renissa says, he says, the word 1010 01:22:53,479 --> 01:23:00,760 God, Ambrose says, is not a name for the nature, but it's 1011 01:23:00,800 --> 01:23:04,359 a name for the operations, which is the latter term for energies, the 1012 01:23:04,520 --> 01:23:14,800 same thing. Peter Lombard, who's the audience, like in the mid kind 1013 01:23:14,800 --> 01:23:16,560 of later well, I guess not super late medieval time, but anyway, 1014 01:23:16,840 --> 01:23:21,000 later on in the classic period. Lombard puts together the Sentences, which is 1015 01:23:21,039 --> 01:23:26,319 just kind of a collection is sort of an medieval quote mine, I guess 1016 01:23:26,439 --> 01:23:31,119 from the from the fathers about all these different topics. Right, he quotes 1017 01:23:31,560 --> 01:23:39,600 Ambrose. So Lombard quotes Ambrose as saying the name the word God is a 1018 01:23:39,760 --> 01:23:43,920 name for the divine nature. So he leaves he just leaves leaves out the 1019 01:23:43,960 --> 01:23:48,199 word not. And that's rele of it because as I'm sure, you know. 1020 01:23:48,319 --> 01:23:57,319 The fourth later and Council. It accepts the Lombardian definition of what divine 1021 01:23:57,399 --> 01:24:01,760 unity is, and that is a further strong, much stronger statement than the 1022 01:24:01,840 --> 01:24:08,279 eight sixty nine. The one God is the three persons state, Yeah, 1023 01:24:08,279 --> 01:24:11,600 because the one God is the three persons or the three persons of the one 1024 01:24:11,680 --> 01:24:15,199 God. That's something that you can totally make sense out of. That's part 1025 01:24:15,239 --> 01:24:19,399 of what I do in this in this book chapter God in his word and 1026 01:24:19,439 --> 01:24:21,880 his Spirit are one God. Sometimes people look at that and they think, 1027 01:24:21,920 --> 01:24:26,239 well, that's kind of crazy, in contradictory or paradoxical. What does that 1028 01:24:26,399 --> 01:24:29,760 mean, or or they get fixated, like if people have listened to my 1029 01:24:29,880 --> 01:24:31,760 podcast about the monarchia, then they think, oh, you can only use 1030 01:24:31,760 --> 01:24:34,119 the word God for the Father and you can't ever say that the Son is 1031 01:24:34,199 --> 01:24:39,600 God or the Trinity is God or something. But what I do is I 1032 01:24:39,680 --> 01:24:43,119 just say, I mean, there is this sense in which the persons of 1033 01:24:43,199 --> 01:24:46,239 the Trinity are one God in the sense of the energies. Right, So 1034 01:24:46,399 --> 01:24:50,880 in the same way we'd say they're one creator because there's one act of creation 1035 01:24:51,279 --> 01:24:57,479 that they all perform. There's there one savior because there's just one act of 1036 01:24:57,680 --> 01:25:01,640 salvation that they all kind of perform, and whatever the activity is that the 1037 01:25:01,720 --> 01:25:08,600 word God expresses, they all do that as one and so they're one God. 1038 01:25:08,800 --> 01:25:13,960 So you certainly can say this person's of the trinity are one God in 1039 01:25:14,680 --> 01:25:18,720 the predicative sense that using the word God as a predicate, right, yes, 1040 01:25:19,159 --> 01:25:24,520 and so then it makes total sense for Jonavan Masters to say God meaning 1041 01:25:24,600 --> 01:25:30,640 the Father and his Son and his Spirit are one God, because it's God 1042 01:25:30,760 --> 01:25:33,800 in the sense of the Father or the sense of the source, right, 1043 01:25:34,239 --> 01:25:40,079 and his son and his Spirit are jointly one agent. Right, they jointly 1044 01:25:40,239 --> 01:25:44,319 do this activity. So it's kind of using the word God in the sense 1045 01:25:44,359 --> 01:25:47,479 of the monarchia and then using the word God in the sense of the energy 1046 01:25:47,680 --> 01:25:50,840 common energy. Yeah. Yeah, John of Masks says there's one God because 1047 01:25:50,880 --> 01:25:56,079 there's one energy, because there's one God acting. But by that he means 1048 01:25:56,479 --> 01:26:00,239 not to deny that the triadic reality, but the way that the any action 1049 01:26:00,399 --> 01:26:05,840 of God happens is triaddic. So the one action is uniquely manifested by the 1050 01:26:05,960 --> 01:26:11,760 Father, Son and Spirit in their respective roles. So it's still one God 1051 01:26:11,840 --> 01:26:15,239 acting and one energy. But that also, by the way for people who 1052 01:26:15,279 --> 01:26:17,880 will clip this and obsess over it. Does not mean that there's only one 1053 01:26:18,159 --> 01:26:24,800 divine energy. There are many divine energies, as the Pino thesis has just 1054 01:26:25,039 --> 01:26:30,520 gone into great detail to show. So let's see. Uh. I noticed 1055 01:26:30,520 --> 01:26:34,560 in your paper here so sort of skimming looking at it, that you you 1056 01:26:34,640 --> 01:26:43,479 did go into the the the recent you know, scholarship from Siegel and other 1057 01:26:43,520 --> 01:26:46,720 people about how do we deal with the Theophanes. You want to comment on 1058 01:26:46,800 --> 01:26:54,520 that, Yeah, I do, And all all if my interlocutors are shocked, 1059 01:26:55,439 --> 01:26:59,640 shocked that I would I would talk about the Theophanes and say it's important, 1060 01:27:00,319 --> 01:27:04,159 It's totally unimportant, there's nothing to see here. Yeah, what I 1061 01:27:04,319 --> 01:27:10,279 what I do is I say there's three I just give three desiderata that you 1062 01:27:10,439 --> 01:27:15,000 want a model of the Trinity or doctrine of the Trinity to do. I 1063 01:27:15,079 --> 01:27:16,279 say, you want, you know, I want it to not be tritheistic, 1064 01:27:16,720 --> 01:27:20,000 which is the big objection. And you want to address this thing from 1065 01:27:20,079 --> 01:27:25,239 Dale Tuggy about why God equals the Father and how does that fit together, 1066 01:27:25,359 --> 01:27:29,479 which we've kind of talked about. And what I say is that a lot 1067 01:27:29,520 --> 01:27:33,479 of the scholarship just focuses on defending the doctrine of the Trinity against objections, 1068 01:27:34,359 --> 01:27:40,880 and it makes it look like like there's no real motivation for the doctrine of 1069 01:27:40,920 --> 01:27:44,800 the Trinity. It's just like here it is, it's part of our tradition, 1070 01:27:44,920 --> 01:27:47,079 and we just want to defend it against and and it kind of starts 1071 01:27:47,159 --> 01:27:50,239 to feel like, oh, well, then if you can't defend it against 1072 01:27:50,279 --> 01:27:56,960 these objections, like unitarianism would just be the default, right, And I 1073 01:27:57,039 --> 01:28:00,439 say that's not really true, because there's there are reasons that motive it, 1074 01:28:00,600 --> 01:28:05,039 right. And the other thing I say is that my my issue with a 1075 01:28:05,079 --> 01:28:10,039 lot of kind of modern these like models of the Trinity that people come up 1076 01:28:10,119 --> 01:28:14,239 with is I say, a lot of times they're so divorced from the original 1077 01:28:14,640 --> 01:28:19,880 motivations behind the doctrine to Trinity that they just kind of are unrecognizable because they've 1078 01:28:20,039 --> 01:28:25,399 they've kind of forgotten what the reasons were for the doctrine and they come up 1079 01:28:25,399 --> 01:28:29,199 with these models that don't really fit. So I talked about the Theophany problem, 1080 01:28:29,399 --> 01:28:32,279 which is just very simply, you know, God says no one can 1081 01:28:32,359 --> 01:28:36,640 see Me and live, but then tons of people see God and live in 1082 01:28:36,680 --> 01:28:40,000 the old Testament, So how do you make sense out of that? And 1083 01:28:40,239 --> 01:28:45,399 it turns out that that was that was a big issue in late Second Temple 1084 01:28:45,920 --> 01:28:53,239 Jewish thought and in like Jewish apocalyptic literature. Yeah, I had. I 1085 01:28:53,359 --> 01:28:57,880 had to read some of that for the debate with Daniel Hikikachew, so I 1086 01:28:57,960 --> 01:29:00,960 went into a lot of those texts. Yeah, and it's really fascinating too. 1087 01:29:01,000 --> 01:29:04,439 I mean there's a lot of you can see it even when people aren't 1088 01:29:05,680 --> 01:29:12,079 like explicitly addressing it. There are all these texts like the Apocalypse of Abraham 1089 01:29:12,199 --> 01:29:15,359 and these sorts of things where like it doesn't explicitly bring it up, but 1090 01:29:15,880 --> 01:29:21,880 it's clear that this text is like giving you a picture of God that's designed 1091 01:29:23,039 --> 01:29:27,600 to make sense out of that issue. Right, So, like the Apocalypse 1092 01:29:27,640 --> 01:29:30,880 of Abraham, for example, you never see God, like you hear his 1093 01:29:31,079 --> 01:29:36,319 voice a few times. But then there's this angel named Yahoel that's kind of 1094 01:29:36,479 --> 01:29:44,359 like a you know, combination of Yahweh and Elohem Yahoel, and that angel 1095 01:29:44,520 --> 01:29:47,479 is who actually appears to Abraham and speaks with him and so forth. And 1096 01:29:47,560 --> 01:29:50,800 so it's like, oh, okay, well then that's what's really happening, 1097 01:29:50,920 --> 01:29:57,760 is Abraham never did actually see God. He saw this angel that kind of 1098 01:29:57,800 --> 01:30:00,000 has God's name or something, and you kind of find out later that the 1099 01:30:00,119 --> 01:30:04,359 angels a big deal. It's not totally clear if he's like created or not, 1100 01:30:04,640 --> 01:30:09,239 but anyway, but there's all these kind of texts like this all through 1101 01:30:09,279 --> 01:30:15,640 the targums, which are these like Aramaic supposed to be like translations of the 1102 01:30:15,119 --> 01:30:20,680 Hebrew Bible from Hebrew into Aramic, but a lot of times the translational kind 1103 01:30:20,680 --> 01:30:25,720 of veer into commentary, like it'll kind of go into explaining things and so 1104 01:30:25,880 --> 01:30:29,319 forth. And in the targams you have this same look almost every time there's 1105 01:30:29,359 --> 01:30:33,640 something anthropomorphia, anytime God is seen, anytime God changes or does anything, 1106 01:30:33,840 --> 01:30:39,600 or there's any kind of anthropomorphism at all, it's like instead of God, 1107 01:30:39,840 --> 01:30:44,560 it's the memra, which is just Aramic for the word like the logos. 1108 01:30:44,760 --> 01:30:48,920 Right, So anyway, that's it's a big issue in late Second Temple Dudaism, 1109 01:30:49,880 --> 01:30:55,439 and I there's other and it's what motivated one of the things that motivates 1110 01:30:55,479 --> 01:30:59,800 this what people call the two powers theology. So there's two powers in have 1111 01:31:00,039 --> 01:31:03,239 and that gets talked about later in the twel Mood and stuff, and what 1112 01:31:03,359 --> 01:31:06,640 I point out is just and a lot of scholar I mean, this isn't 1113 01:31:06,720 --> 01:31:10,760 like original to me. A lot of scholars have said, yeah, it 1114 01:31:10,800 --> 01:31:15,680 looks like what's what's happened was with Christianities. Christianity was just another one of 1115 01:31:15,760 --> 01:31:19,920 these two powers views. There were a lot of different schools of thought in 1116 01:31:20,039 --> 01:31:25,279 Judaism at the time. A lot of people today we think about Judaism as 1117 01:31:25,319 --> 01:31:30,039 a more monolithic sort of thing because it's basically like kind of just the Pharisees 1118 01:31:30,199 --> 01:31:33,319 that survived the destruction of Jerusalem and everything. But I mean, if you 1119 01:31:33,359 --> 01:31:38,279 think about it, like even in the New Testament, we get you know, 1120 01:31:38,359 --> 01:31:42,279 we get told like the Sadducees didn't believe in a resurrection, I didn't 1121 01:31:42,279 --> 01:31:46,760 believe in angels. They thought like, if you there's no afterlife at all. 1122 01:31:47,039 --> 01:31:50,319 So if you I mean they literally said, like, if you can 1123 01:31:50,520 --> 01:31:56,159 sin and you don't get punished for it or whatever, you were a gainer. 1124 01:31:56,359 --> 01:32:00,199 That's what you're like, if you die, you'd never great because there's 1125 01:32:00,239 --> 01:32:03,600 no afterlife. And they didn't accept any of the profits, like just the 1126 01:32:03,720 --> 01:32:09,600 Torah. So like if that's a very radically different kind of Judaism right, 1127 01:32:09,640 --> 01:32:14,760 and the scenes were even right and still so there's a lot going on in 1128 01:32:14,840 --> 01:32:17,520 Second Temple Judaism. And a lot of people today would just say, yeah, 1129 01:32:17,520 --> 01:32:21,960 it looks like Christianity was one of these two powers kind of versions of 1130 01:32:23,119 --> 01:32:28,039 Judaism. I think Boyarn says that Christianity, early Christianity, represents a conservative 1131 01:32:28,119 --> 01:32:31,199 form of that early Judaism. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's another 1132 01:32:31,239 --> 01:32:35,279 thing is a lot of people have have argued that that maybe that is actually 1133 01:32:35,399 --> 01:32:42,640 the more traditional older view and the like strictly unitarian sort of yeah, he's 1134 01:32:42,720 --> 01:32:50,319 he thinks that's a summer thinks that's mamonidean. Oh well, well, that 1135 01:32:50,640 --> 01:32:56,279 that the strict codified view that I mean, not that there there weren't Unitarian 1136 01:32:56,359 --> 01:33:00,399 views prior to mam and eighties, but that that it becomes normal of as 1137 01:33:00,399 --> 01:33:03,560 a strict Unitarian thing is modified by mom. And that's a summer argument. 1138 01:33:04,119 --> 01:33:08,359 Okay, yeah, fair enough, because it's all over the tall mood these 1139 01:33:08,479 --> 01:33:11,079 this kind of discussion. Yeah, no, I know, they rejected. 1140 01:33:11,199 --> 01:33:14,760 There was a they had a they rejected. It was a rabbi Rabbi Akiva 1141 01:33:15,199 --> 01:33:18,159 speculator. One of them is speculated about multiple powers and then that he gets 1142 01:33:18,199 --> 01:33:21,640 rejected early on. Yeah, it's funny. You just reminded that's one of 1143 01:33:21,680 --> 01:33:28,600 the things that motivated me to well, and it kind of was behind me 1144 01:33:28,720 --> 01:33:30,800 converting to Orthodox later. But anyway, that's that's a whole other, whole 1145 01:33:30,840 --> 01:33:34,600 other issue. But but yeah, so there's a lot of scholarship to say, 1146 01:33:34,640 --> 01:33:42,199 okay, Christianity two powers in heaven version of Judaism and early Christians just 1147 01:33:42,319 --> 01:33:47,960 kind of identified Jesus as the second power. Messiah is the second power. 1148 01:33:50,319 --> 01:33:53,560 And then so that's where you get in there's where you get the Doctor of 1149 01:33:53,600 --> 01:33:57,319 the Trinity, right, because they thought Jesus is the Messiah and he's the 1150 01:33:57,399 --> 01:34:01,039 second power in heaven and and then and then you get questions, you know, 1151 01:34:01,199 --> 01:34:06,479 so later you get and actually Steve Father Stephen Deyong points this out in 1152 01:34:06,720 --> 01:34:14,319 the Religion of the Apostles that you know, you have versions of Judaism where 1153 01:34:14,439 --> 01:34:18,720 the second power is a created angel like Michael or you know, and then 1154 01:34:18,760 --> 01:34:24,079 you get versions of Metatron or something, Yeah, Metatron, who's explicitly a 1155 01:34:24,199 --> 01:34:27,960 creature. And then you get versions where it's a human like Enoch or something 1156 01:34:28,000 --> 01:34:31,159 that's like in kind of elevated to this divine status, and then you have 1157 01:34:31,279 --> 01:34:34,479 stuff like the memo in the Targets, which looks like, okay, that's 1158 01:34:34,760 --> 01:34:42,520 probably uncreated. So he just points out that that sort of gets reflected later 1159 01:34:42,600 --> 01:34:47,439 in Christianity with like arianism would be kind of like the Medatron or Michael's sort 1160 01:34:47,439 --> 01:34:53,359 of view, like Christ is a created angel. The adoptionism is like the 1161 01:34:53,600 --> 01:34:57,760 Enoch view, like Jesus is a man who's kind of elevated as and an 1162 01:34:57,840 --> 01:35:00,600 Orthodoxy is sort of like the memo of view that's like, you know, 1163 01:35:00,880 --> 01:35:05,159 it's he's uncreated, and I think that's probably right that you just you know 1164 01:35:05,560 --> 01:35:10,880 you you have I mean, Christianity just came out of Judaism, and and 1165 01:35:12,199 --> 01:35:16,680 it makes sense that people would be looking at these Jewish schools of thought and 1166 01:35:16,840 --> 01:35:23,239 kind of thinking, okay, where do we fit and whatever. And anyway, 1167 01:35:23,319 --> 01:35:28,119 so my my thing is like that's that's the historical origin of the doctum 1168 01:35:28,119 --> 01:35:32,920 of the Trinity traces back to two powers Jewish theology and this question about the 1169 01:35:33,000 --> 01:35:38,760 Theophanes, and so your model of the Trinity ought to have an answer to 1170 01:35:38,920 --> 01:35:42,800 this question, how is it that you can no one can see God? 1171 01:35:42,920 --> 01:35:47,760 But everybody sees it. So I go through kind of how the I mean, 1172 01:35:47,800 --> 01:35:51,680 basically, I just say the church Father's view is not I mean, 1173 01:35:51,720 --> 01:35:56,920 they they're all pretty clear. Like the person that was seen in the Theophanes 1174 01:35:57,079 --> 01:36:03,039 was Jesus Christ. All the second century apologists say that third century the capit 1175 01:36:03,079 --> 01:36:08,239 Ocians do, and it kind of goes goes on up well, and it 1176 01:36:08,279 --> 01:36:12,039 seems to be the way Jesus argues to the Pharisees in John five, and 1177 01:36:12,119 --> 01:36:15,439 it doesn't seem like the Pharisees really take issue with it. You know, 1178 01:36:15,520 --> 01:36:17,239 he says, no one sees the Father at any time, right, Yeah, 1179 01:36:17,560 --> 01:36:23,439 no one has ever seen the Father anything. And that's well, one 1180 01:36:23,479 --> 01:36:29,760 thing I do is I point out, like, okay, so unitarians, 1181 01:36:29,920 --> 01:36:33,520 I mean, of course have a what I call a father theophany theology, 1182 01:36:33,800 --> 01:36:38,279 right, so that the theophanies, the appearances of God in the Old Testament 1183 01:36:38,600 --> 01:36:41,199 have to be the Father for them, because there's not just no one else 1184 01:36:41,239 --> 01:36:45,960 that could write Jesus wasn't created yet, and the Holy Spirit's just another word 1185 01:36:45,000 --> 01:36:47,479 for the Father. So they have to have a father theophany of you. 1186 01:36:49,479 --> 01:36:55,000 Well, that is that because they hold on? Is that because they have 1187 01:36:55,159 --> 01:37:00,359 to do. They have to grapple with the fact that it's identified as autumn 1188 01:37:00,399 --> 01:37:02,640 worshiped or why why wouldn't they just say it's an angel, a created angel. 1189 01:37:02,760 --> 01:37:04,800 Well I was gonna say, you're right, they could just say it's 1190 01:37:04,840 --> 01:37:11,399 a created angel. Yeah, But but my issue with that, and I 1191 01:37:11,479 --> 01:37:15,479 talk about that in my response to to Tuggy my kind of challenges to him 1192 01:37:15,600 --> 01:37:20,000 is I say, so, like, yeah, you could say it's a 1193 01:37:20,079 --> 01:37:28,880 created angel. Well, let me put it this way. You could Sometimes 1194 01:37:29,000 --> 01:37:32,359 some unitarians will respond to this whole thing by saying, yeah, cool, 1195 01:37:32,439 --> 01:37:36,159 whatever, but that's not Jesus. Jesus is just created. But it's like, 1196 01:37:36,319 --> 01:37:40,840 well, if you have two divine persons, it's just not Jesus. 1197 01:37:40,880 --> 01:37:45,199 I mean, that's still they're still right, like if that's if that's try 1198 01:37:45,279 --> 01:37:49,359 theism or Dietheism for for Trinitarians, and it's still Dietheism is just not with 1199 01:37:49,560 --> 01:37:54,800 Jesus, and that's not who cares, right, So really, you mean 1200 01:37:54,840 --> 01:37:57,640 you'd have to say it's a created angel, so you you in other words, 1201 01:37:57,640 --> 01:38:02,039 you're just going really with old school areas right, that the the logos 1202 01:38:02,159 --> 01:38:06,960 is this creature or whatever, and I don't really have time in in the 1203 01:38:08,359 --> 01:38:11,760 within the word count that I that I have to go into like a full 1204 01:38:12,600 --> 01:38:15,039 criticism of arianism. But I but there's kind of two things I'd say about 1205 01:38:15,079 --> 01:38:21,199 that. Number one arianism. I mean, I hate people don't like to 1206 01:38:21,239 --> 01:38:25,279 hear this, but I mean, from a scholarly sort of perspective, like 1207 01:38:26,760 --> 01:38:31,680 arianism is not not like a nut job view, Like it's not just like 1208 01:38:31,960 --> 01:38:38,239 totally. I mean, there's a reason why it cropped up in Alexandria in 1209 01:38:38,319 --> 01:38:42,399 the fourth century and it took so long to work out, is like, 1210 01:38:42,520 --> 01:38:45,960 I mean, it's there's there are arguments for it. There's a lot of 1211 01:38:45,039 --> 01:38:51,039 ambiguity in some of the second century and third century writings and so forth. 1212 01:38:51,079 --> 01:38:58,159 So it's like, I mean, it's not it's not so nutty, but 1213 01:38:58,279 --> 01:39:00,680 it's also its way. I mean it's it's it's way far from where like 1214 01:39:00,800 --> 01:39:04,199 Dale Tuggy is, where Jesus is just a creature. Because for the Arians 1215 01:39:04,319 --> 01:39:12,560 like and think about this, I mean, arians were clear that like when 1216 01:39:12,680 --> 01:39:15,840 Yahweh shows up to Moses and says I am that I am, Like, 1217 01:39:15,920 --> 01:39:19,960 that's Jesus, right, I mean they would call him y'all. I mean, 1218 01:39:20,000 --> 01:39:24,239 you know me its even says like that he you know, he says 1219 01:39:24,319 --> 01:39:28,800 nothing I've said goes against the divinity of Christ, and it's like what but 1220 01:39:29,479 --> 01:39:30,880 but but I mean they had a pretty I mean, they actually had a 1221 01:39:30,920 --> 01:39:36,079 pretty high Christology. It's just people today will kind of caricature them as like, 1222 01:39:36,399 --> 01:39:39,520 oh, they thought Jesus was just a man, or he's a creature 1223 01:39:39,560 --> 01:39:43,640 or whatever, and it's like, well, I mean really they had a 1224 01:39:43,760 --> 01:39:48,479 kind of you know, like as high as you can go Christology without being 1225 01:39:48,600 --> 01:39:53,079 quite you know, orthodox, and and people kind of forget that that it's 1226 01:39:53,239 --> 01:39:56,560 you know, it's not just like a low Christology view. It's actually pretty 1227 01:39:56,960 --> 01:40:00,640 pretty high, but just kind of not quite there. But anyway, the 1228 01:40:00,720 --> 01:40:06,399 other thing that I just kind of briefly say is it's pretty difficult to look 1229 01:40:06,439 --> 01:40:14,279 at the character that speaks to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and 1230 01:40:15,319 --> 01:40:21,159 visits Abraham under the oak of Mamray and says to Moses, I am that 1231 01:40:21,279 --> 01:40:28,760 I am, gives the Torah to Moses on Mount SINAI makes the covenant with 1232 01:40:29,000 --> 01:40:36,680 Israel, and it looked like that guy is a creature that I mean, 1233 01:40:36,960 --> 01:40:41,439 that's just hard. I mean okay, but it's hard. It's hard. 1234 01:40:41,680 --> 01:40:45,359 Intuitively, that seems pretty hard to believe, right for me, like to 1235 01:40:45,760 --> 01:40:49,079 go to actually read through the Bible and look at all of the theophanies and 1236 01:40:49,399 --> 01:40:56,920 and be like, yeah, that's that's a creature. And and in fact, 1237 01:40:56,920 --> 01:40:59,640 I mean I think that that's kind of the reason why a lot of 1238 01:41:00,960 --> 01:41:04,720 a lot of people just assume that the person that's showing up in the Old 1239 01:41:04,760 --> 01:41:10,720 Testament to talk and reveal things and make the covenant, so it must be 1240 01:41:10,800 --> 01:41:13,439 the Father. It must be God, the Father, because I think they 1241 01:41:13,560 --> 01:41:17,279 just intuitively they know like that that dude can't be a creature. That's that's 1242 01:41:17,399 --> 01:41:23,279 the that person is divine. I mean that just it just it's just as 1243 01:41:23,359 --> 01:41:26,399 weird. It's just as so maybe, I mean, that's not a super 1244 01:41:26,840 --> 01:41:30,720 fantastic argument. There's I think there's other arguments you can make against arianism. 1245 01:41:30,760 --> 01:41:32,560 I think he just kind of gets too too much in the weeds. I 1246 01:41:32,600 --> 01:41:34,439 didn't really have a lot of time for it. But that's kind of the 1247 01:41:34,760 --> 01:41:40,760 argument that I make to Tuggy is just like, that's a that's a thing 1248 01:41:40,800 --> 01:41:43,520 you have to swallow if you if you want to go down that road. 1249 01:41:43,600 --> 01:41:46,760 You have to say, like, this person is a creature. I think 1250 01:41:46,840 --> 01:41:55,600 that's I think that's pretty tough to buy. All right, So you move 1251 01:41:55,640 --> 01:42:00,079 in this paper to discussing, uh, you know Calvin and later theologians. 1252 01:42:01,640 --> 01:42:06,840 Is that let me I'm looking here? Is that because about the theopoies that 1253 01:42:06,920 --> 01:42:12,760 I that I do argue is so I talked about you know, Father Theophany 1254 01:42:12,960 --> 01:42:18,439 theology and Son Theophanes theology, and I just point out, like, so 1255 01:42:18,600 --> 01:42:24,439 the logical form of those statements, right, like no one has seen God 1256 01:42:25,000 --> 01:42:29,760 or you know, Isaiah saw God, Moses sauga. You have a subject 1257 01:42:29,920 --> 01:42:33,199 or a quantifier. This is the kind of a logical form of the statement 1258 01:42:34,319 --> 01:42:41,399 quantifier or subject term relation seeing and then God right, the object of this 1259 01:42:41,520 --> 01:42:45,399 relation. So you've really got three ways to resolve that apparent contradiction. You 1260 01:42:45,479 --> 01:42:51,159 could you could what we call restricting the quantifier. You could restrict the quantifier 1261 01:42:51,199 --> 01:42:54,560 and say, well, when it says, you know, no one can 1262 01:42:54,600 --> 01:42:58,279 see God, it really means something like no sinful person has ever seen God, 1263 01:42:58,479 --> 01:43:01,840 or no you know, certain kind of person, or something kind of 1264 01:43:01,920 --> 01:43:04,279 like when we say there's nothing in the fridge and we really you know, 1265 01:43:04,359 --> 01:43:10,199 of course there's oxygen we really need, Like no tasty food in the fridge 1266 01:43:10,319 --> 01:43:13,520 is what we really need. You know, there's nothing on TV, nothing 1267 01:43:13,600 --> 01:43:16,119 good on TV. So you could do something like that to try to resolve 1268 01:43:16,199 --> 01:43:19,520 it, right, restrict the quantifier, or you could say like, well, 1269 01:43:19,520 --> 01:43:24,359 there's different senses of seeing. You could kind of equivocate or just kind 1270 01:43:24,399 --> 01:43:27,760 of talk about, well, you can see you can't see God in certain 1271 01:43:27,960 --> 01:43:30,760 sense, but you can see God in a different sense or certain times or 1272 01:43:30,840 --> 01:43:34,479 not, so you make some distinction there, or you can make a distinction 1273 01:43:34,640 --> 01:43:39,239 in the term God and say, well, sometimes the word God refers to 1274 01:43:39,479 --> 01:43:44,960 one person and sometimes it's referring to a different person, right, And essentially 1275 01:43:45,039 --> 01:43:47,439 the two powers kind of theology, that's what that's doing is saying, well, 1276 01:43:47,439 --> 01:43:51,279 there's there's and some of them even put it this way. They actually 1277 01:43:51,359 --> 01:43:56,520 put it in terms they talk about the invisible Yahweh and the visible Yahweh, 1278 01:43:56,920 --> 01:44:01,960 and something will actually actually say the they're basically calling big Yahweh and little Yahweh. 1279 01:44:02,399 --> 01:44:08,159 It's kind of like Yahweh Hagad Doll's sort of like Yahweh Senior and Yahweh 1280 01:44:08,279 --> 01:44:12,520 Junior, which you then you look at the New Testaments like Father and Son. 1281 01:44:13,000 --> 01:44:16,079 It's kind of like, yahweis senior, yeahweh junior. Right. So 1282 01:44:16,239 --> 01:44:19,279 here's the thing I say. Look, if you have a theoph if you 1283 01:44:19,359 --> 01:44:24,039 have a view of the theophanies that say the theophanies are God the Father, 1284 01:44:24,920 --> 01:44:29,199 then you can't use that solution, right. You can't say it's well, 1285 01:44:29,239 --> 01:44:30,640 it's referring to two different people, because it's the Father who's the one that 1286 01:44:30,760 --> 01:44:33,960 shows up, right. People see, so you have to use one of 1287 01:44:34,000 --> 01:44:38,039 the other two or the other or both, right, you have to restrict 1288 01:44:38,119 --> 01:44:43,119 the quantifier or make distinctions about how you can see God. Right. On 1289 01:44:43,199 --> 01:44:45,359 the other hand, if you do have if you have a son theophany, 1290 01:44:45,439 --> 01:44:47,199 or you just have a two powers kind of view, then you can use 1291 01:44:47,279 --> 01:44:50,479 that solution and you could use the other two. You don't need to, 1292 01:44:51,000 --> 01:44:55,119 right. So what I do is I go through the Book of Mormon and 1293 01:44:55,279 --> 01:45:00,960 I and I point it because Mormonism explicitly teaches that the theore were God the 1294 01:45:00,039 --> 01:45:04,279 Father. And so I go through the Mormon and there's all these passes where 1295 01:45:04,960 --> 01:45:14,159 the like Joseph Smith translation of the Old Testament, everywhere, all over, 1296 01:45:14,279 --> 01:45:19,479 all over and over and over it. He puts in, no sinful person 1297 01:45:20,439 --> 01:45:26,399 can see God. No one without the grace of the Mormon priesthood can see 1298 01:45:26,479 --> 01:45:30,840 God. Right, So all these times where it's restricting the quantifier right, 1299 01:45:30,520 --> 01:45:33,800 or it'll say things like you can't see God with your physical eyes, but 1300 01:45:33,960 --> 01:45:39,479 with your spiritual eyes, or you can't see me like you did at one 1301 01:45:39,600 --> 01:45:43,800 point in time now at this point in time, you can't. So distinctions 1302 01:45:43,880 --> 01:45:47,279 in the way or sense of seeing or the circumstances or whatever. So that 1303 01:45:47,399 --> 01:45:50,560 it's always, I mean, in every case, and it talks about all 1304 01:45:50,600 --> 01:45:56,359 I mean, there's numerous verses in the in the Book of Mormon that and 1305 01:45:56,479 --> 01:46:00,399 the Joseph Smith version of the Bible that talk about the is that always uses 1306 01:46:00,520 --> 01:46:06,079 those two strategies to kind of resolve the issue. Never never talks about a 1307 01:46:06,119 --> 01:46:10,720 different divine person or anything like that. If you go through all the pay 1308 01:46:10,800 --> 01:46:15,479 passages in the New Testament where it brings it up, the New Testament like 1309 01:46:15,600 --> 01:46:18,279 doubles down on the language like no one has seen God, no one's seen 1310 01:46:18,319 --> 01:46:24,079 God at any time one can possibly see God. He dwells an unapproachable light. 1311 01:46:24,720 --> 01:46:27,840 No one has ever seen him, nor can see him. Jesus says, 1312 01:46:27,920 --> 01:46:30,479 no one has ever seen the Father. You've never seen him at any 1313 01:46:30,560 --> 01:46:33,000 time or nor heard his voice at any time. Like it's just over and 1314 01:46:33,079 --> 01:46:38,119 over and over, doubling down on. There's no restriction on the quantifier. 1315 01:46:38,159 --> 01:46:43,600 There's not different senses, it's not different times or possibilities or way. And 1316 01:46:43,760 --> 01:46:48,199 actually there is that there is an exception made, and it makes an exception 1317 01:46:48,359 --> 01:46:51,439 for Jesus. So there's a few passes where it says no one has seen 1318 01:46:51,479 --> 01:46:58,560 the Father except he who's from the Father, Jesus. Right, So it's 1319 01:46:58,680 --> 01:47:02,279 like, well, the only exception made for who can see God as Jesus. 1320 01:47:04,960 --> 01:47:09,479 So anyway, the point being, the New Testament never does those two 1321 01:47:09,560 --> 01:47:14,479 things that you have to do if you have a father theophany theology, but 1322 01:47:14,640 --> 01:47:17,720 it frequently mentions a second person, which is Jesus. So it will say 1323 01:47:17,800 --> 01:47:25,039 no one has ever seen God, the only begotten has revealed him, or 1324 01:47:25,119 --> 01:47:28,000 Philip says, show us the Father, and Jesus says, if you've seen 1325 01:47:28,039 --> 01:47:31,079 me, you've seen the Father. And there's numerous passages where it does it. 1326 01:47:31,560 --> 01:47:33,960 It will mention, you know, say no one can see God, 1327 01:47:34,039 --> 01:47:39,720 and then it says Christ is the icon of God or Christ is the exact 1328 01:47:39,800 --> 01:47:43,079 image of his hypothesis. Well, so it has all these you know, 1329 01:47:44,159 --> 01:47:46,640 you know, statements to the effect that Christ is the visible image of the 1330 01:47:46,760 --> 01:47:51,920 invisible God. So anyway, that's kind of my argument that it just looks 1331 01:47:53,039 --> 01:47:57,960 like the New Testament clearly has this view that it's Jesus who was the theophany 1332 01:47:58,279 --> 01:48:02,079 faith. Yes, exactly, And yeah, all my interlocutors think that it's 1333 01:48:02,159 --> 01:48:06,920 crazy, but none of them have any good response to it. Hasker just 1334 01:48:06,960 --> 01:48:13,880 says he's agnostic about it. And William Lane Craig's talking about swamp man or 1335 01:48:13,920 --> 01:48:19,199 something human. God couldn't could have just materialized humanoid figures, and I'm just 1336 01:48:19,399 --> 01:48:28,199 like, whatever, swamp man, I mean, I'm pretty sure, right, 1337 01:48:28,439 --> 01:48:31,560 Yeah, I mean it's at least at least Augustine has like angels, 1338 01:48:31,680 --> 01:48:33,479 like at least making it. Yeah, I mean an angel will be a 1339 01:48:33,520 --> 01:48:44,159 better Yeah, but toxic avenger or something. All right, Well, so 1340 01:48:44,560 --> 01:48:45,560 go ahead, do you want to move on this, do you want to 1341 01:48:45,840 --> 01:48:50,119 get more into whatever progresses? Yeah, we move on from So I just 1342 01:48:50,199 --> 01:48:53,479 kind of yeah, I mean I just argue that, you know, the 1343 01:48:53,880 --> 01:48:59,359 capit Ocean sort of view you know it. It gives you a way to 1344 01:49:00,119 --> 01:49:03,279 say why in the New Testament the word God just refers to the Father typically, 1345 01:49:03,840 --> 01:49:08,960 which is that he's the monarchia, the one source, and that's how 1346 01:49:09,000 --> 01:49:15,439 they're how they're using the term and you so you get one God in that 1347 01:49:15,640 --> 01:49:19,640 sense. There's one God in another sense, where you know, you can 1348 01:49:19,760 --> 01:49:26,479 use the word to apply to saints and demons whatever because of the divine energies 1349 01:49:27,079 --> 01:49:30,920 or in the demon's case, not sort of divine energies, but anyway, 1350 01:49:30,039 --> 01:49:36,399 the energies because of inseparable operations. And then you can use if you want 1351 01:49:36,439 --> 01:49:41,640 to use the word god to predicate the divine nature, you can. You 1352 01:49:41,760 --> 01:49:44,479 get one God in that sense too. And I talk a little bit about 1353 01:49:44,560 --> 01:49:50,039 kind of ancient views about counting and the idea of quantity and why they sort 1354 01:49:50,039 --> 01:49:54,680 of ends up that you have one God in that sense too, So I 1355 01:49:54,800 --> 01:49:57,960 just kind of say, in any of those senses, you still get the 1356 01:49:58,039 --> 01:50:00,800 result that there's one God. So it doesn't end up being tritheistic. We've 1357 01:50:00,800 --> 01:50:04,800 got an answer to Tuggy's issues about the New Testament, and you have this 1358 01:50:05,399 --> 01:50:13,920 response to the Theophanes problem, and it makes sense out of things like Basil 1359 01:50:13,960 --> 01:50:16,359 saying there's one God because there's one Father, or like the nice Increed saying 1360 01:50:16,399 --> 01:50:21,279 that, and you know, jonathanask Is saying God and his Word and his 1361 01:50:21,399 --> 01:50:25,960 Spirit are one God. And I just kind of point out, I, 1362 01:50:26,239 --> 01:50:29,720 well, I'll have to We're having to cut stuff down, So I'm gonna 1363 01:50:29,880 --> 01:50:32,119 end up taking this out of the conclusion here. But what I kind of 1364 01:50:32,159 --> 01:50:38,520 go into with my responses to the other authors is just sort of the further 1365 01:50:38,640 --> 01:50:45,399 away they get from this orthodox and historical sort of view, the more those 1366 01:50:45,560 --> 01:50:48,720 kind of breakdown and they get worse and worse sort of views. So like 1367 01:50:48,840 --> 01:50:56,760 Hasker believes in the divine processions like eternal begetting and eternal spiration, but he 1368 01:50:56,840 --> 01:51:00,840 doesn't believe in the inseparable operations, and so I just say, well, 1369 01:51:00,880 --> 01:51:04,880 then that causes a problem. One of the things I bring up is this 1370 01:51:05,000 --> 01:51:11,520 whole three gods issue. People focus on that and they don't think about the 1371 01:51:11,600 --> 01:51:16,239 fact that there are other predicates that generate the same problem, Like savior. 1372 01:51:16,920 --> 01:51:21,640 Fathers described as the savior, the son's described as savior, but then Isaiah 1373 01:51:21,640 --> 01:51:25,359 says, there's only one savior. No one else is a savior. You 1374 01:51:25,439 --> 01:51:28,359 know, so there's other things that we want to say, there's only one 1375 01:51:28,439 --> 01:51:35,800 of and Gregory of Niss's response in terms of inseparable operations kind of resolves all 1376 01:51:35,840 --> 01:51:42,760 of those all all at once, right, because saving is a divine activity, 1377 01:51:43,039 --> 01:51:46,640 it's a divine energy. There's roles that each of them have in that 1378 01:51:46,800 --> 01:51:54,119 one act, right, Yeah, and it's one, it's one unified is 1379 01:51:54,199 --> 01:51:59,439 one one savior, one creator, one redeemer, sanctifier or whatever. You 1380 01:51:59,520 --> 01:52:00,760 know, there's lots of p and I point out that, you know this 1381 01:52:00,920 --> 01:52:04,399 is it's a problem for all of them, and even the Unitarian, even 1382 01:52:04,479 --> 01:52:10,359 Dale Tuggy right has to say, like, there's I guess two saviors because 1383 01:52:11,520 --> 01:52:15,720 they're not the same savior. I haven't haven't seen his response to that yet, 1384 01:52:15,800 --> 01:52:17,079 but we'll see if he has a good response to it. But I 1385 01:52:17,199 --> 01:52:20,760 just say, I mean all of them rejecting separable operations, and so they 1386 01:52:20,800 --> 01:52:27,520 all kind of have to deal with the same issue as the tritheism, just 1387 01:52:27,600 --> 01:52:35,079 with different predator and then with with William Lane Craig rejects the monarchy of the 1388 01:52:35,159 --> 01:52:40,640 father and the eternal begetting and procession. So I say, I mean, 1389 01:52:40,680 --> 01:52:45,319 he's got a problem with the monarchia, there's not really one. Well, 1390 01:52:45,359 --> 01:52:48,720 it's not this is not super clear to me. Maybe he'll clarify in his 1391 01:52:49,039 --> 01:52:53,760 final response, but it's not clear to me what his view is about what's 1392 01:52:55,199 --> 01:52:59,039 He kind of says this thing like the Trinity. He thinks the Trinity as 1393 01:52:59,039 --> 01:53:02,359 a whole, is this kind of like Voltron Captain planet thing, you know, 1394 01:53:02,520 --> 01:53:08,279 that's like, that's the one God. And he says that's assay. 1395 01:53:09,920 --> 01:53:15,640 But then also all the persons are assay. But there's not four assay things. 1396 01:53:15,800 --> 01:53:20,359 There's just and I have no idea really exactly that works. So but 1397 01:53:20,840 --> 01:53:24,880 but anyway, I mean, he's got there certainly is a question here, 1398 01:53:25,000 --> 01:53:30,239 like is there one first principle, like one thing that is the ultimate being? 1399 01:53:33,279 --> 01:53:35,439 I mean, I guess the most charitable way to read him is to 1400 01:53:35,520 --> 01:53:39,239 say that he thinks that that's the trinity, but then it's but then he 1401 01:53:39,279 --> 01:53:42,439 gets this question. There's this question like, so why is it that in 1402 01:53:42,560 --> 01:53:47,159 the New Testament typically the word God refers to the Father, and at least 1403 01:53:47,199 --> 01:53:49,920 in the stuff that we've written so far, I don't really see a good 1404 01:53:50,520 --> 01:53:57,560 well and he's acknowledged that well as the point that you made to that. 1405 01:53:57,760 --> 01:54:01,479 You know, pretty much throughout the New Testament and throughout the Patristic Corpus, 1406 01:54:02,880 --> 01:54:12,439 you have consistent usage of subordination, and so we don't need to be afraid 1407 01:54:12,479 --> 01:54:16,159 of subordination. That a lot of people's reaction to subordination is to swing over 1408 01:54:16,239 --> 01:54:21,239 into this egalitarian trinitarian view, as if as if that will somehow stave off 1409 01:54:21,359 --> 01:54:27,000 all of the subordination points. But subordination isn't the problem because of the church 1410 01:54:27,079 --> 01:54:30,000 Fathers teach subordination. But what does it mean to be subordinate? And you 1411 01:54:30,039 --> 01:54:35,439 can be subordinate in different ways without sacrificing the deity of the Sun and the 1412 01:54:35,520 --> 01:54:43,359 Spirit. Yeah, I edited a guest edited an issue of Theologica, which 1413 01:54:43,439 --> 01:54:46,079 is open access, so you can read all the articles if people want to 1414 01:54:46,079 --> 01:54:50,960 look at it. But Mark Edwards wrote a good paper for us in that 1415 01:54:51,399 --> 01:54:57,560 issue about just that. I mean, he just said like what he described 1416 01:54:57,600 --> 01:55:01,319 as like the Gorgon's head of ordination is like in theology, people just like 1417 01:55:01,680 --> 01:55:06,359 subordinationism, you know, and he just goes through and he says, like, 1418 01:55:06,479 --> 01:55:10,960 look, there's like I think he gives like five or six different senses 1419 01:55:11,039 --> 01:55:14,880 of subordination. Is you know, yeah, talk about and he goes through 1420 01:55:14,920 --> 01:55:19,479 and he's just like, look very clearly, you know, here's one or 1421 01:55:19,520 --> 01:55:25,840 two senses that they're just absolutely affirmed by everybody in the theological tradition, like 1422 01:55:25,960 --> 01:55:29,680 all the way you know, up into the to the Protestant Reformation or something. 1423 01:55:29,720 --> 01:55:31,760 There's some that are always denied and some maybe he's a little bit more 1424 01:55:31,840 --> 01:55:34,520 questionable. But and that's what he says, is just like, yeah, 1425 01:55:34,600 --> 01:55:39,960 you don't you know, you don't have to you don't have to get a 1426 01:55:40,000 --> 01:55:45,319 distinction in the divine nature or something like that because you have a hypostatic you 1427 01:55:45,399 --> 01:55:50,039 know, a causal sort of subordination or something like that. Yeah, I 1428 01:55:50,359 --> 01:55:58,079 have a view about this. I think that I think that the rise of 1429 01:55:58,279 --> 01:56:02,520 nominalism in the you know, in into the Scholastic period beginning of the modern 1430 01:56:02,760 --> 01:56:11,680 period and in Protestant theology and stuff, reak tavoc on a lot of the 1431 01:56:13,000 --> 01:56:16,000 these issues. I think I think that what it is is that I really 1432 01:56:16,039 --> 01:56:21,720 don't I really don't see any way to make sense out of the trinity if 1433 01:56:21,760 --> 01:56:26,960 you're a nominalist, uh in a in a strongest, I mean, if 1434 01:56:27,000 --> 01:56:30,079 you just kind of think there's just individuals and words and that's all. There's 1435 01:56:30,159 --> 01:56:34,760 no sense in which there are properties or right, you know, and things 1436 01:56:34,800 --> 01:56:38,880 like that. I think that, yeah, you probably can't really make sense 1437 01:56:38,920 --> 01:56:42,560 out of the Doctor the Trinity on those presuppositions, and you probably do just 1438 01:56:42,680 --> 01:56:46,000 get the result that this is three gods and it's all contradictory and it's whatever. 1439 01:56:46,359 --> 01:56:49,319 And I think what that did is sort of drove people in two different 1440 01:56:49,399 --> 01:56:54,000 directions, which is you get a lot of it's kind of rationalists who are 1441 01:56:54,079 --> 01:56:59,359 like, well, let's just give up on Christianity altogether or be unitarians or 1442 01:56:59,439 --> 01:57:02,359 some kind of whatever. And then you think you get another strand where it's 1443 01:57:02,439 --> 01:57:08,039 like people want to hold on to the doctrum of the Trinity and the whole 1444 01:57:08,119 --> 01:57:11,960 tradition, but they can't make sense out of it anymore. And I think 1445 01:57:12,000 --> 01:57:17,720 you get a lot of like reinterpreting what the whole debate was really really about. 1446 01:57:18,520 --> 01:57:23,119 And so I think that's when you start getting people talking about like subordination 1447 01:57:23,319 --> 01:57:27,840 is like the real issue was that, you know, the Aryans wanted to 1448 01:57:28,000 --> 01:57:34,560 subordinate the Sun and make him not equal, and we're enlightenment people who believe 1449 01:57:34,600 --> 01:57:40,720 in democracy or whatever, and you know, and that's what the fathers wanted 1450 01:57:40,720 --> 01:57:43,399 to do. They want to make them all equal or something. And it's 1451 01:57:43,520 --> 01:57:46,520 like the stuff about you know, homo Ussius is just kind of like it's 1452 01:57:46,640 --> 01:57:49,920 just a way of kind of getting at that issue. And I just think, 1453 01:57:50,079 --> 01:57:55,119 like, no, the homo Ousius was about being Homousius. That's why 1454 01:57:55,199 --> 01:57:59,840 they use the term. It wasn't it wasn't like secretly about this deeper whatever 1455 01:58:00,039 --> 01:58:03,760 about subordination. But I think that's what has happened, is is you just 1456 01:58:03,880 --> 01:58:08,439 you've got a lot of reinterpreting of what the Trinity is about because they just 1457 01:58:08,520 --> 01:58:15,119 couldn't make sense out of it on their philosophical presuppositions. Do you see a 1458 01:58:15,199 --> 01:58:19,239 specific time where I mean, I'm aware of like late medieval nominalism and all 1459 01:58:19,279 --> 01:58:23,119 that, but I mean, like, do you think that there's certain is 1460 01:58:23,199 --> 01:58:26,199 that would you say that, Well, when Calvin talks about you know, 1461 01:58:26,319 --> 01:58:31,920 the person's being awse, would you relate it to that or Yeah, that's 1462 01:58:31,920 --> 01:58:33,760 a good question. Actually I don't know. I mean, I don't know 1463 01:58:34,239 --> 01:58:41,640 much about Calvin so because he's a nominalist, right, but he talks about 1464 01:58:41,640 --> 01:58:44,600 it. Well, I mean, it's hard to say because sometimes there's arguments 1465 01:58:44,640 --> 01:58:47,520 that in places he's influenced by realism, but then at other times it seems 1466 01:58:47,560 --> 01:58:54,119 like he might be influenced by nominalism. But you know, specifically his denial 1467 01:58:54,239 --> 01:58:58,880 of the eternal generation because well some people even argue that he didn't explicitly, 1468 01:58:59,000 --> 01:59:00,840 but he does say the son is assa. So I'm just wondering if that, 1469 01:59:01,520 --> 01:59:05,279 if that move is in that a little bit about just his theology in 1470 01:59:05,319 --> 01:59:15,279 that, and I I think that I think Calvin's probably misinterpreted on that score. 1471 01:59:15,720 --> 01:59:17,920 I don't think he I mean, it sounds done. I don't know 1472 01:59:18,000 --> 01:59:23,039 if if someone you know out there is like a big Calvin personal play, 1473 01:59:23,119 --> 01:59:28,560 like this guy's an idiot, But I sort of think he doesn't really think 1474 01:59:28,680 --> 01:59:30,640 that the son is asse. I mean no, I mean I know, 1475 01:59:30,720 --> 01:59:33,840 and I know that's exactly what he says, but I think like when you 1476 01:59:34,000 --> 01:59:38,760 look at because what he says is, yeah, the son is totally assay 1477 01:59:38,800 --> 01:59:45,680 because the father grants him a saity and like makes him asse and you read 1478 01:59:45,760 --> 01:59:48,439 anything, that's what just But I think what's going on he you know, 1479 01:59:48,760 --> 01:59:54,319 Calvin makes this distinction between different senses in which you can say that something is 1480 01:59:54,359 --> 02:00:00,560 ass so there's a hypostatic sense and there's an essential sense. And so what 1481 02:00:01,039 --> 02:00:04,000 you know, in other words, what the way Calvin thinks about it? 1482 02:00:04,079 --> 02:00:08,439 I as I understand him anyway, And I mean I could be totally wrong. 1483 02:00:08,600 --> 02:00:11,920 I'm not a Calvin scholar by any means, but but I think that 1484 02:00:12,079 --> 02:00:18,359 what he thinks is that in some sense, the father's assay and the divine 1485 02:00:18,520 --> 02:00:25,479 nature is assay because that's all sort of part of this one sort of package. 1486 02:00:25,600 --> 02:00:32,079 Right here's the father, He's assay, his essence and his hypostatic property 1487 02:00:32,119 --> 02:00:36,640 whatever like is also it's all assay because it's just the father. Right then 1488 02:00:36,680 --> 02:00:42,640 the father kind of communicates the that divine nature to the son. Yeah, 1489 02:00:42,840 --> 02:00:47,279 yeah, the son has this nature that is. Yeah. That's why there's 1490 02:00:47,319 --> 02:00:51,159 debate about it because the Calvinists will say that, yeah, well he didn't 1491 02:00:51,279 --> 02:00:55,359 actually deny it, but that it was actually I'll say that he was communicated 1492 02:00:55,399 --> 02:00:58,039 to him. But I don't know how that makes actually makes sense sense, 1493 02:00:58,079 --> 02:01:00,359 but he will say that like yeah, well, I mean so whether it 1494 02:01:00,439 --> 02:01:06,359 makes sense or not is not that's a whole but but but yeah, I 1495 02:01:06,399 --> 02:01:11,079 mean, any way, point being, he does make this distinction between you 1496 02:01:11,119 --> 02:01:15,000 know, essential I say it, and hypostatic I saity, And he does 1497 02:01:15,119 --> 02:01:17,680 say that, Yeah, the Son and the Spirit don't have hypostatic I say 1498 02:01:17,960 --> 02:01:21,119 so, if you just kind of, I mean, however, you want 1499 02:01:21,159 --> 02:01:24,359 to make sense out of that, if you just wrap it up into sort 1500 02:01:24,399 --> 02:01:33,640 of like absolutely assay, yeah in every sense versus not totally absolutely assay, 1501 02:01:34,319 --> 02:01:39,279 then I think Calvin is gonna say the Son and the Spirit are not totally 1502 02:01:39,359 --> 02:01:42,880 absolutely that's true. Yeah. I did delve into this a while back. 1503 02:01:42,880 --> 02:01:45,359 I don't really have that much of an interest in it, but I did. 1504 02:01:45,880 --> 02:01:47,840 I got to the point where I realized there's you know, dispute over 1505 02:01:48,760 --> 02:01:53,000 you know, it's not an extreme form of it like you're saying, I 1506 02:01:53,279 --> 02:02:00,800 have a Sam Waldron is a Baptist pastor and author and the elogian who, 1507 02:02:00,920 --> 02:02:04,119 for who knows what reason, lives in the same town in Kentucky that I 1508 02:02:04,239 --> 02:02:08,000 do. So I've sat down with him a few times to talk about this, 1509 02:02:08,159 --> 02:02:10,960 and he he convinced me to go, like, look at Calvin and 1510 02:02:11,039 --> 02:02:15,399 s he because he's because Sam is big on the monarchy of the father too, 1511 02:02:15,720 --> 02:02:21,600 and doesn't like all of this egalitarian nonsense. That evangelicals have come up 1512 02:02:21,640 --> 02:02:27,359 with, and yeah, and he's a big Calvinist and so he's he was 1513 02:02:27,520 --> 02:02:31,920 like like, no, that's not well. And I think he's probably right 1514 02:02:32,000 --> 02:02:36,640 about that. Yeah. We have a friend that I've known for many years 1515 02:02:36,680 --> 02:02:42,159 that he was Calvinist back when I was Calvinist, and I put he's got 1516 02:02:42,199 --> 02:02:45,279 a couple of articles that he wrote that are pretty good. He's Orthodox now, 1517 02:02:45,760 --> 02:02:50,640 Robin Phillips, and he wrote some pretty lengthy, well done essays about 1518 02:02:51,119 --> 02:02:55,560 whether whether Calvin was a nominalist or not. So I'm putting some of those 1519 02:02:55,600 --> 02:02:59,439 in the chat for those that are interested. I think the strongest argument would 1520 02:02:59,439 --> 02:03:03,079 be in regard to like the theological voluntarism, which is pretty much bound up 1521 02:03:03,159 --> 02:03:10,479 with nominalism, and that would be probably one of the stronger signs that he 1522 02:03:10,600 --> 02:03:14,520 was influenced by nominalism. But a lot of these Puritans were also very neoplatonic, 1523 02:03:14,680 --> 02:03:16,840 and so they would they thought that, like you could, that the 1524 02:03:16,880 --> 02:03:25,520 predestination could also be argued from this sort of ideas in the mind mind being 1525 02:03:25,640 --> 02:03:30,039 necessary. So I don't know that Calvin makes are you, but some of 1526 02:03:30,079 --> 02:03:32,600 the later Puritans do. But anyway, back to your stuff. I don't 1527 02:03:32,600 --> 02:03:38,239 mean to get way off board, But so when you were saying nominalism influencing 1528 02:03:38,399 --> 02:03:45,680 this this idea of basically because natures are just particular natures, there's no universals, 1529 02:03:45,960 --> 02:03:48,760 do you think that Were you saying that that's like more of an Enlightenment 1530 02:03:48,840 --> 02:03:54,520 era when that was getting more popular. Is that what you meant? Well, 1531 02:03:56,760 --> 02:04:01,399 yeah, I mean all the like, pretty much all all the big 1532 02:04:01,880 --> 02:04:09,640 names in early modern philosophy are nominalists in some sense, right, A lot 1533 02:04:09,720 --> 02:04:14,640 a lot of them believe in what they would call modes or accidents, but 1534 02:04:14,760 --> 02:04:16,960 they I mean, they're kind of like they might believe in so they might 1535 02:04:17,000 --> 02:04:23,199 believe in properties in somethings, but they're like particular Propertiesian theology, you were 1536 02:04:23,239 --> 02:04:27,159 saying that you think a lot of Trinitarians are just sort of default influenced by 1537 02:04:27,760 --> 02:04:30,000 nominalism, And yeah, yeah, I mean, like so nominalism I think, 1538 02:04:31,159 --> 02:04:34,039 I mean, you know, it gets off the ground, like in 1539 02:04:34,119 --> 02:04:39,279 the context of late Scholastic Catholic you know, like William Obakam, right, 1540 02:04:40,399 --> 02:04:44,479 yeah, but yeah, like then you get people like I mean, so 1541 02:04:44,720 --> 02:04:51,880 like h. Luther was a big alchemist and a lot of Protestant theology just 1542 02:04:53,159 --> 02:04:59,920 ends up being influenced by nominalism. And then all these early modern philosophers bake 1543 02:05:00,159 --> 02:05:05,640 Nd and Descartes and they're all nominalists, right, So I think it seems 1544 02:05:05,760 --> 02:05:13,720 like there's a big rise in that in that time period, in in nominalism 1545 02:05:14,760 --> 02:05:21,840 and this big like scholastic philosophy and theology. That's yeah, who cares, 1546 02:05:25,680 --> 02:05:27,760 And yeah, I think it's very one of the things. What I what 1547 02:05:27,920 --> 02:05:30,199 I talk about. This is one thing we haven't mentioned yet in the paper. 1548 02:05:30,319 --> 02:05:33,920 So the sense in which there's one God, in the sense of God 1549 02:05:34,359 --> 02:05:40,439 meaning thing with the divine nature. That's something I only kind of really figured 1550 02:05:40,479 --> 02:05:44,479 out after I wrote my dissertation, and I haven't really written anything about it 1551 02:05:44,600 --> 02:05:51,119 yet much, but I kind of mentioned in here is just in in antiquity 1552 02:05:51,399 --> 02:05:59,600 all the way through Akham and up into the modern period. The way most 1553 02:05:59,680 --> 02:06:03,960 people, I mean a way like Aristotle through Akham pretty much everyone talks about 1554 02:06:04,079 --> 02:06:12,920 quantity is they think of it in terms of dividing an aggregate of things into 1555 02:06:13,199 --> 02:06:19,640 discrete parts. And then the number of an aggregate is the number of parts 1556 02:06:19,960 --> 02:06:26,199 that it's divided or divisible into. So if I've got like ten horses in 1557 02:06:26,319 --> 02:06:29,640 the field. The way they think about that is, well, you've got 1558 02:06:29,680 --> 02:06:33,720 this aggregate, You've got this clump of horses here, and you can you 1559 02:06:33,800 --> 02:06:41,279 know, it's divided. They're separated out into ten discrete objects, each one 1560 02:06:41,359 --> 02:06:45,600 of which is a horse. So the horses number ten. They are ten. 1561 02:06:47,760 --> 02:06:55,399 And that's different from how people think about quantity or number today. For 1562 02:06:55,760 --> 02:06:58,560 people in the stream, I know this, but got loved. Frega was 1563 02:06:58,640 --> 02:07:04,880 a mathematician in the late eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds who he was a mathematician 1564 02:07:04,920 --> 02:07:12,920 but influenced philosophy and logic in a big way. So he just sort of 1565 02:07:13,039 --> 02:07:16,279 redid logic from the ground up, like scrapped Aristotle and kind of redid things. 1566 02:07:16,439 --> 02:07:20,119 And his big interest was in number. And he goes through all these 1567 02:07:20,159 --> 02:07:25,000 different concepts, all these different definitions of what a number is, and he 1568 02:07:25,199 --> 02:07:30,319 argues against all of them, and most people were very persuaded by all of 1569 02:07:30,399 --> 02:07:36,720 his arguments. And his ultimate conclusion is that a number is a basically, 1570 02:07:39,239 --> 02:07:42,560 to put it in his terms, is a second level concept, but it's 1571 02:07:42,600 --> 02:07:46,399 basically like think of it as a property of a property. So he thinks 1572 02:07:46,479 --> 02:07:51,079 that if you say there are ten horses in the field. What you really 1573 02:07:51,199 --> 02:07:58,239 mean is there's this property of being a horse in the field, and that 1574 02:07:58,520 --> 02:08:03,560 property applies to these ten different things. And so that property has the property 1575 02:08:03,359 --> 02:08:11,520 of, you know, being of having it's circular to put it this way, 1576 02:08:11,600 --> 02:08:15,439 but having ten things that applies to you ready. And but but the 1577 02:08:15,479 --> 02:08:20,319 way that he thinks of that is that you have you have like these logical 1578 02:08:20,479 --> 02:08:26,119 subjects sort of that are not identical. So you've got you know, this 1579 02:08:26,479 --> 02:08:31,000 horse A is not identical. Horse number one is not identical to horse number 1580 02:08:31,000 --> 02:08:33,920 two or three or four, five or whatever, and they're all not identical. 1581 02:08:35,079 --> 02:08:37,800 Right, So he's thinking of it, is like and he doesn't even 1582 02:08:37,840 --> 02:08:41,239 really think of it in terms of aggregates. He just thinks of it just 1583 02:08:41,319 --> 02:08:46,600 in terms of properties. But he's thinking of like the how many horses are 1584 02:08:46,720 --> 02:08:54,159 not identical to other horses, right, So it's it's all about non identity, 1585 02:08:54,960 --> 02:08:58,600 whereas in the ancient and medieval way of thinking of things, it's it's 1586 02:08:58,680 --> 02:09:05,199 not that they're not identical, it's that they are discrete, so meaning they 1587 02:09:05,239 --> 02:09:11,800 actually are either physically separated or could be physically separated, or could be like 1588 02:09:11,880 --> 02:09:16,640 then they wouldn't have any kind of like overlap, and so you know, 1589 02:09:18,079 --> 02:09:20,600 to to some extent, like concretely, that might not make much difference, 1590 02:09:20,680 --> 02:09:24,039 but there is a there are cases, so when we're talking about cases of 1591 02:09:24,199 --> 02:09:28,239 overlap, it does make a difference. So just as as an example, 1592 02:09:31,439 --> 02:09:35,600 like one criticism that people have made of this kind of more contemporary way of 1593 02:09:35,640 --> 02:09:41,920 thinking about counting, as like, suppose you have suppose you have a gallon 1594 02:09:41,960 --> 02:09:46,199 and a half of water in a container, like in a tub or something. 1595 02:09:46,239 --> 02:09:50,600 You know, So take what's in the lower two thirds of the container, 1596 02:09:50,000 --> 02:09:52,399 right, two thirds of a gallon and a half is a gallon of 1597 02:09:52,439 --> 02:09:56,279 water. So take the lower two thirds, label that A, that's a 1598 02:09:56,359 --> 02:10:01,960 gallon of water. Take the upper two thirds the container, label that B 1599 02:10:01,359 --> 02:10:05,119 that's a gallon of water. I've got two gallons of water out of one 1600 02:10:05,159 --> 02:10:11,199 and a half gallons, right Like that doesn't like that's that seems like a 1601 02:10:11,239 --> 02:10:13,760 strangers up. But that's I mean literally, if you take it in a 1602 02:10:13,880 --> 02:10:16,520 very straightforward way, like the way that that he talks about counting, you'd 1603 02:10:16,560 --> 02:10:20,800 have to say, well, a's a gallon. Be's a gallon? A 1604 02:10:20,920 --> 02:10:26,039 is not equal to be that's two gallons, right, Whereas the ancient and 1605 02:10:26,119 --> 02:10:30,359 medieval way of thinking about it in terms of discrete parts, they'd say, 1606 02:10:30,399 --> 02:10:35,199 well, there's not any way that you can pull a and be apart and 1607 02:10:35,399 --> 02:10:37,039 have a gallon over here in a gallon over there. Right, there's no 1608 02:10:37,119 --> 02:10:41,319 way to separate them into a gallon and a gallon. You can separate it 1609 02:10:41,640 --> 02:10:46,279 into a over here, and then you only get half of B. So 1610 02:10:46,359 --> 02:10:50,680 you've got the half gallon over here because you're taking out the overlap put it 1611 02:10:50,720 --> 02:10:52,560 over here. You could separate it the other way, but either way you 1612 02:10:52,720 --> 02:10:56,600 just you get one and a half. Right. There's no there's no way 1613 02:10:56,680 --> 02:11:01,279 to divide or separate into into discrete parts. So whenever you have cases of 1614 02:11:01,399 --> 02:11:07,119 like overlap, you you get a you get a different result here between non 1615 02:11:07,239 --> 02:11:13,640 identity versus division or separability, right, and what I say in the in 1616 02:11:13,760 --> 02:11:18,439 the the way this plays out with the divine nature and kind of with the 1617 02:11:18,600 --> 02:11:24,279 inseparable operations too, But let's take the divine nature, if so. One 1618 02:11:24,319 --> 02:11:31,039 way to think about it is like the if you think about properties is kind 1619 02:11:31,079 --> 02:11:35,039 of like you know, in things like an n Ray view of properties, 1620 02:11:35,119 --> 02:11:41,399 as they as they would say, can you divide these properties up right, 1621 02:11:41,800 --> 02:11:43,840 So in O there is one way to think about, like you know, 1622 02:11:45,319 --> 02:11:50,279 how many how many horses are? There is like how many instances of horseness 1623 02:11:50,239 --> 02:11:54,680 can we separate? Out right? And the question is kind of well, 1624 02:11:54,680 --> 02:11:58,119 what just what is horseness or what is the you know, the what is 1625 02:11:58,199 --> 02:12:03,279 that collection? What I point out is like, well, if you're a 1626 02:12:03,399 --> 02:12:07,279 nominalist, if you think all we really have, if you're an austere nominalist, 1627 02:12:07,439 --> 02:12:11,880 is just the particular horses, right, right, So there's not gonna 1628 02:12:11,880 --> 02:12:18,319 be any right, there's never I mean, there's gonna be ten horses no 1629 02:12:18,399 --> 02:12:26,439 matter how we divvy things up. Right. If you think that the instances 1630 02:12:26,479 --> 02:12:30,640 of horseness, like the tropes or the modes, if you want to call 1631 02:12:30,680 --> 02:12:35,840 them that, the particular instances of horseness, if you think that those are 1632 02:12:37,039 --> 02:12:43,000 individuated by the particulars the particular horses, then okay, you've got these ten 1633 02:12:43,159 --> 02:12:48,079 separate horses. You're gonna have ten separate instances of horseness, right, But 1634 02:12:48,479 --> 02:12:56,039 if you think that those particular instances, those property instances are not individuated by 1635 02:12:56,239 --> 02:13:01,800 their bearers, but they're individuated spatio temporarily right, then you might have things 1636 02:13:01,880 --> 02:13:07,800 that could overlap. They might be non identical, right, but they could 1637 02:13:07,880 --> 02:13:13,479 overlap and share properly. Yes, right, yeah. So in other words, 1638 02:13:13,560 --> 02:13:18,560 kind of like this one in the many, right, wouldn't yeah, 1639 02:13:18,560 --> 02:13:22,039 I wouldn't just see one anymore, right, it would be potentially you could 1640 02:13:22,079 --> 02:13:28,600 have subjects that are logically see but they overlap on some property and on that 1641 02:13:28,720 --> 02:13:33,159 way when they would count as just one whatever. Right, So in the 1642 02:13:33,199 --> 02:13:37,479 same way that like you know the the think about it this way, like 1643 02:13:37,600 --> 02:13:41,920 it start with two gallons discrete gallons of water. Okay, no problem, 1644 02:13:41,960 --> 02:13:46,560 they're discrete, they're not identical, they're two gallons of water. Have them 1645 02:13:46,640 --> 02:13:52,600 overlap on just like one drop of water. Well, now they're not two 1646 02:13:52,720 --> 02:13:56,000 gallons of water. It's it's a gallon. It's a drop less than two 1647 02:13:56,119 --> 02:14:01,520 gallons, right, because you don't double count the overlap. Go down to 1648 02:14:01,560 --> 02:14:03,920 a gallon and a half. You could have you know, a gallon here 1649 02:14:03,960 --> 02:14:07,399 and a gallon here that overlap. Right now, you'd say it's a they 1650 02:14:07,479 --> 02:14:11,199 overlap on half a gallon, So it's half a gallon less than two, 1651 02:14:11,399 --> 02:14:15,680 right, Go all the way down to just like a gallon plus a drop. 1652 02:14:16,520 --> 02:14:20,760 Right, take the gallon over here minus the drop over here, the 1653 02:14:20,840 --> 02:14:24,079 gallon over here minus the drop over there, you wouldn't call those two gallons 1654 02:14:24,119 --> 02:14:28,239 of water. You'd say it's just a gallon and a drop because they overlap 1655 02:14:28,359 --> 02:14:31,840 on everything but a drop. It stands to reason that I mean, if 1656 02:14:31,880 --> 02:14:35,439 that's the way we count, right, if you could have total overlap, 1657 02:14:35,520 --> 02:14:41,239 then they would count as one, right, And of course I mean we'd 1658 02:14:41,279 --> 02:14:45,960 say, well that's you know, gallons of water are individuated by their location 1659 02:14:46,119 --> 02:14:50,359 partly, so you couldn't have overlapping gallons of water. But suppose with the 1660 02:14:50,439 --> 02:14:54,960 persons of the trinity, you have total overlap. Because they're not material beings 1661 02:14:56,039 --> 02:15:03,000 in they're everywhere present and so on, right, there's not point being is 1662 02:15:03,119 --> 02:15:05,840 and or also if you just think, well, these are not spatiotemporal entities, 1663 02:15:07,039 --> 02:15:11,920 right, so there's not anything to like pull apart their instance of divinity, 1664 02:15:13,199 --> 02:15:18,319 instance of the divine nature. Right, So anyway I kind of go, 1665 02:15:18,439 --> 02:15:20,399 I go through that, and I just point out like if you're an 1666 02:15:20,399 --> 02:15:24,199 austere anomalist or you have this a certain view about how properties work, right, 1667 02:15:24,359 --> 02:15:28,039 then you are just going to get three gods and then we are We 1668 02:15:28,119 --> 02:15:33,960 see this in church history with John philipponas he does this, yeah, exactly, 1669 02:15:33,119 --> 02:15:37,800 where he basically identifies nature's as just particulars, and then when he goes 1670 02:15:37,840 --> 02:15:39,960 to the trinity, he says, well, if we have three persons, 1671 02:15:41,000 --> 02:15:43,960 those are just three particular natures, and so we have about sort of a 1672 02:15:43,039 --> 02:15:48,199 proto tritheism there. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. That's why he 1673 02:15:48,319 --> 02:15:52,000 was condemned as a tritheist because, yeah, because he had a particular view 1674 02:15:52,319 --> 02:15:56,880 about universals, which is that they're just sort of collections of particulars and that's 1675 02:15:58,680 --> 02:16:01,159 it, right, and I and I do think, I mean on that 1676 02:16:01,359 --> 02:16:05,680 view, yeah, I mean, you you've got three gods and that I 1677 02:16:05,760 --> 02:16:07,119 mean, that's how people thought about counting. And one one of the things 1678 02:16:07,159 --> 02:16:16,199 I point out in the paper the essay I should say, is that despite 1679 02:16:16,279 --> 02:16:22,520 whatever differences you might find between different church fathers about various points of metaphysics or 1680 02:16:22,640 --> 02:16:28,840 theology, whatever, all of them say the divine nature is undivided. And 1681 02:16:28,960 --> 02:16:33,000 that's that's the point of saying that, is that it's this view about counting 1682 02:16:33,079 --> 02:16:35,840 that it's you know, we say in the in the liturgy, like the 1683 02:16:35,280 --> 02:16:39,760 father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one in essence, the trinity one 1684 02:16:39,840 --> 02:16:46,920 in essence and undivided, which is important. And actually all of the Meophysites, 1685 02:16:48,280 --> 02:16:54,239 uh, their their their view about universals kind of ends up. They'll 1686 02:16:54,479 --> 02:16:58,680 they end up saying like the divine nature is divided. Yeah, exactly, 1687 02:17:00,079 --> 02:17:05,239 Yeah. I mean if you basically reduce person to an instance of nature, 1688 02:17:05,559 --> 02:17:07,799 you would be led to that, and their hostrology leads to that one to 1689 02:17:07,920 --> 02:17:11,840 one, right, yeah, and even I mean like Aquinas, everybody, 1690 02:17:11,840 --> 02:17:16,920 I mean, any anyone who's sort of vaguely Orthodox, like, they all 1691 02:17:18,000 --> 02:17:22,399 say that divine nature is undivided. And actually I was I mentioned this you, 1692 02:17:22,639 --> 02:17:26,479 I mentioned this to you earlier. But I'm been kind of reading a 1693 02:17:26,520 --> 02:17:28,040 little bit more in a Quinas about some of these things, and I mean 1694 02:17:28,120 --> 02:17:33,319 he's very clear. It's some some writings where he, I mean he just 1695 02:17:33,360 --> 02:17:37,719 says, yeah, the reason that three men are three men is because the 1696 02:17:37,840 --> 02:17:43,399 humanity is divided among them, but the divinity is not divided among the persons, 1697 02:17:43,479 --> 02:17:48,239 the trinity. So anyway, yeah, I talk about that, and 1698 02:17:48,360 --> 02:17:52,920 how kind of some stuff about quantity in antiquity there. I forget how we 1699 02:17:52,959 --> 02:17:56,000 got onto that subject, but that kind of covers everything, the last little 1700 02:17:56,079 --> 02:18:00,799 detail of what goes on in the paper. I mean, the result then 1701 02:18:00,920 --> 02:18:05,159 is like, whether you're using God in the sense of monarchia or the divine 1702 02:18:05,239 --> 02:18:09,120 nature or the divine energies, you get one God on any of those, 1703 02:18:09,280 --> 02:18:13,399 any of those interpretations. And there's actually a passage I point to in Gregory 1704 02:18:13,440 --> 02:18:18,399 and Asians and where I think that's what he's saying. People have interpreted him 1705 02:18:18,399 --> 02:18:24,920 differently, but he says, you know, whether we look to the monarchia, 1706 02:18:24,120 --> 02:18:31,120 the urkey, or the divine nature or the I forget how he puts 1707 02:18:31,120 --> 02:18:33,319 it. Anyway, he kind of lists these things out, and some people 1708 02:18:33,360 --> 02:18:35,200 have wanted to interpret him as saying like these are all kind of the same 1709 02:18:35,280 --> 02:18:41,680 thing, But I think he's really saying, these are three different senses in 1710 02:18:41,760 --> 02:18:45,280 which we can ask whether there's one God, and there ends up being one 1711 02:18:45,319 --> 02:18:48,000 God in all three of these senses. And a lot of these Unitarian arguments 1712 02:18:48,079 --> 02:18:52,200 kind of tied to the nominalism that you're saying relate to a certain way of 1713 02:18:52,360 --> 02:18:58,360 counting post Frego, which is strictly by this kind of nominalist identity counting, 1714 02:18:58,399 --> 02:19:01,879 and you're saying that they didn't really strictly count that way in the ancient medieval 1715 02:19:01,920 --> 02:19:05,200 world. Even in Aquinas, he's not counting that way. Yeah, oh 1716 02:19:05,280 --> 02:19:09,840 yeah, for sure, Aquinas doesn't that. Yeah, he's an Aristotelian as 1717 02:19:09,879 --> 02:19:13,520 far. I mean, even I've looked through since I kind of since this 1718 02:19:13,600 --> 02:19:18,040 sort of clicked for me, and I've looked from yeah, I mean, 1719 02:19:18,239 --> 02:19:24,200 from Aristotle up through Acam and it's just pretty consistently like everyone kind of takes 1720 02:19:24,239 --> 02:19:28,440 this this view. And I think what happens is, just like I said, 1721 02:19:28,479 --> 02:19:31,959 in the modern period, people all kind of go nominalists, and so 1722 02:19:33,319 --> 02:19:35,559 even if they're counting in that same way, they can't make sense out of 1723 02:19:35,600 --> 02:19:39,440 the Doctor of the Trinity anymore. Yeah, I say you're saying now, 1724 02:19:39,520 --> 02:19:43,920 right, so the the way with Friga, you get this different way of 1725 02:19:43,040 --> 02:19:46,000 counting. So now even if you go back to not being a nominalist, 1726 02:19:46,600 --> 02:19:50,079 you get three gods because you just got this different way of counting. Right, 1727 02:19:52,440 --> 02:19:56,040 So you just have these three discrete individuals right in the trinity counting that 1728 02:19:56,120 --> 02:20:01,399 way. Right. If you're counting by identity, I mean you can say, 1729 02:20:03,520 --> 02:20:07,479 yeah, the persons are not identical, so bamed, they're you know, 1730 02:20:07,600 --> 02:20:09,040 they're three gods. So what you needed, you need you need a 1731 02:20:09,120 --> 02:20:13,440 way to count different things in different ways, and you need a way to 1732 02:20:13,559 --> 02:20:18,440 say that there's a way in which God is won. There's also a way 1733 02:20:18,479 --> 02:20:22,479 in which he's not one or he's he's you know, triadic, and the 1734 02:20:22,520 --> 02:20:26,920 ancient medieval world had ways by which they you know, they counted that didn't 1735 02:20:28,040 --> 02:20:35,760 allow for distinction entailing composition or division, right, Yeah, Yeah, And 1736 02:20:35,840 --> 02:20:43,520 actually I think Aquinas does a nice I think I've looked through lots of people. 1737 02:20:43,639 --> 02:20:46,879 I mean I was starting as far back as the Capit Oceans and going 1738 02:20:46,959 --> 02:20:52,959 through like Theodora Abukura and other people, and like up through Aquinas. Everybody 1739 02:20:52,079 --> 02:20:58,239 tries to make this some sort of distinction like this. Aquinas ends up just 1740 02:20:58,319 --> 02:21:05,159 call making the distinction between what he calls material division versus formal division, where 1741 02:21:05,280 --> 02:21:11,959 formal division really is kind of just having different properties, right, so it's 1742 02:21:11,000 --> 02:21:16,799 not like really separation or something like that. And so that's kind of the 1743 02:21:16,840 --> 02:21:20,719 distinction that he makes to say, that's why we can say there's one God, 1744 02:21:20,760 --> 02:21:26,159 but there's three persons, because God is this you know, sort of 1745 02:21:26,280 --> 02:21:30,639 first order term that we would we would look at in terms of separation. 1746 02:21:30,879 --> 02:21:35,840 Right. The idea of a hypostasis or what they call apositum or whatever you 1747 02:21:35,879 --> 02:21:41,840 want to call it, is kind of this like second order logical sort of 1748 02:21:41,000 --> 02:21:48,879 concept, right, and those you you kind of distinguished by formal division because 1749 02:21:48,879 --> 02:21:50,959 there's things, you know, there's things, there are things that we want 1750 02:21:50,079 --> 02:21:58,559 to count that wouldn't be aggregates that you can, right, like logical laws 1751 02:21:58,639 --> 02:22:03,000 or sets that you talked about, right, like Aristotle the ten category categories. 1752 02:22:03,079 --> 02:22:07,879 Yeah, like those you can't have half of a category. Yeah. 1753 02:22:09,040 --> 02:22:11,360 And that's one thing is interesting too, is those sorts of things that you 1754 02:22:11,520 --> 02:22:18,120 do count my identity are the kinds of things that don't You can't can't you 1755 02:22:18,200 --> 02:22:20,959 know? Yeah? Anyway, so it sort of makes sense that we would, 1756 02:22:22,520 --> 02:22:30,520 you know, apply different different approaches in different those different contexts. All 1757 02:22:30,559 --> 02:22:33,920 right, Well, kept you for over two hours. It's a great chat. 1758 02:22:33,399 --> 02:22:37,840 Are we Are you okay to go to the super chats now? Oh 1759 02:22:37,959 --> 02:22:41,200 yeah, yeah for sure. Francis Bull one dollar twenty two cents. God 1760 02:22:41,239 --> 02:22:43,479 bless you. Jay started watching you recently. Well, thank you, Frances, 1761 02:22:43,520 --> 02:22:48,159 appreciate that. Glad to have you on board. DC Woodworking our regular 1762 02:22:48,799 --> 02:22:52,680 buddy and super chatter since three dollars, thank you so much, Justice Byorke 1763 02:22:52,959 --> 02:22:56,600 five dollars. I have a question for doctor Branson. How does all of 1764 02:22:56,639 --> 02:23:00,799 the quote Christ is our God, language and the liturgy fit within your framework 1765 02:23:00,959 --> 02:23:03,760 of monarchical trinitarianism. I hope my question makes sense. I think we already 1766 02:23:03,760 --> 02:23:07,520 addressed it, but you can answer that again. Yeah. No, Actually, 1767 02:23:07,559 --> 02:23:09,200 one of the one of the things I didn't quite get to is in 1768 02:23:09,319 --> 02:23:15,159 the paper I do you talk about this too? That there's also an issue 1769 02:23:15,440 --> 02:23:24,520 of that that we treat a representation of something as though it were the thing 1770 02:23:24,600 --> 02:23:26,399 that it represents a lot of times I talk a little bit about that. 1771 02:23:26,440 --> 02:23:31,920 And there's an interesting dissertation from from someone in linguistics. The title of the 1772 02:23:31,959 --> 02:23:37,559 dissertation was I rolled a one and now I'm dead. And she goes through 1773 02:23:37,600 --> 02:23:41,760 all this like linguistic data from dungeons and dragons, transcripts and stuff. But 1774 02:23:41,680 --> 02:23:48,399 what she points out is like, so that in that sentence, in particular, 1775 02:23:48,639 --> 02:23:52,639 right, I rolled a one, now I'm dead, the first instance 1776 02:23:52,719 --> 02:23:58,079 of the word I has to refer to me the human player, right, 1777 02:23:58,440 --> 02:24:03,159 because I'm rolling the dice, but character isn't rolling dies. And then I'm 1778 02:24:03,319 --> 02:24:07,719 dead. Well, their eye has to refer to the character in the game, 1779 02:24:07,239 --> 02:24:11,319 right, because I didn't die, And she goes to all these cases 1780 02:24:11,399 --> 02:24:16,879 where she's looking at you know, where people just go back and forth freely 1781 02:24:16,040 --> 02:24:24,879 between using indexical pronouns like I sometimes to refer themselves, sometimes to this character 1782 02:24:24,920 --> 02:24:28,959 they're playing. People will use a person's name, the human person's name to 1783 02:24:30,000 --> 02:24:33,159 refer their character, and the character's name to refer to the person, and 1784 02:24:33,600 --> 02:24:35,440 back and forth. And I just point out that, you know, that's 1785 02:24:35,559 --> 02:24:43,440 that's how we we we that's how we just use language. We treat the 1786 02:24:43,559 --> 02:24:48,079 representation as though it were the thing represented. And so if you think of 1787 02:24:48,120 --> 02:24:52,799 it as Christ as the icon of God, which is part of the issue 1788 02:24:52,840 --> 02:24:56,239 with the Theophanes problem, and that theology is that, then it then it 1789 02:24:56,360 --> 02:25:03,319 makes sense why Christ is in the Old Testament referred to as God and Yahweh 1790 02:25:03,000 --> 02:25:09,479 and so forth pretty frequently, right, And why I think, you know, 1791 02:25:09,559 --> 02:25:11,440 even in the New Testament, they're like in Hebrews, the first chapter 1792 02:25:11,440 --> 02:25:16,319 of Hebrews where it says, you know, concerning the sun, it says 1793 02:25:18,000 --> 02:25:22,719 God by God hath anointed thee and Yahweh, you know, in the beginning 1794 02:25:22,799 --> 02:25:28,159 laid the foundation of the heaven and earth. So it's you know, referring 1795 02:25:28,239 --> 02:25:31,760 to Christ as God and as Yahweh. And Basil talks about that explicit and 1796 02:25:31,879 --> 02:25:37,360 he says that, you know, we if you have the emperor and an 1797 02:25:37,440 --> 02:25:39,079 image of the emperor, he says, you would point to the image and 1798 02:25:39,159 --> 02:25:43,159 say that's the emperor. But he says, that doesn't give you two emperors. 1799 02:25:43,200 --> 02:25:48,280 It just gives you one emperor and the icon of the Emperor. Which 1800 02:25:48,479 --> 02:25:56,200 I point out that you don't hear that so much from Protestants because that's what 1801 02:25:56,399 --> 02:26:01,840 that's the theology behind the seventh the Cnical Council, So you don't you don't 1802 02:26:01,920 --> 02:26:05,879 get a whole lot of of that. But that's that's what Basil. That's 1803 02:26:07,000 --> 02:26:09,520 kind of how he makes sense out of it. So yeah, I mean, 1804 02:26:09,559 --> 02:26:16,879 I think you can now that you know, the ariyans Arians tried to 1805 02:26:16,959 --> 02:26:22,280 take that, the fact that we refer to Christ as our God and use 1806 02:26:22,360 --> 02:26:26,680 it to sort of they sort of did this same like, well, Christ 1807 02:26:26,840 --> 02:26:30,200 is our God and the Father's like his God, and it's just kind of 1808 02:26:30,360 --> 02:26:35,680 like you know, means different. It's kind of different things. But but 1809 02:26:35,760 --> 02:26:37,479 I think the Patricia the capit oceans of view anyways, kind of just to 1810 02:26:37,600 --> 02:26:41,280 say, it's because Christ is the icon of God. So you can point 1811 02:26:41,360 --> 02:26:48,000 to Christ and say that's God. I mean kind of the same way I 1812 02:26:48,000 --> 02:26:50,719 would point to an icon of Christ and say that's Jesus, Like, who's 1813 02:26:50,799 --> 02:26:58,079 that, that's Jesus, right, double ow, honeybee. Ten dollars, 1814 02:26:58,159 --> 02:27:01,559 thank you so much, petty dollars, Thank you so much, petty. 1815 02:27:01,079 --> 02:27:07,399 Appreciate that, doomer or five dollars. Any are the divine energies in any 1816 02:27:07,440 --> 02:27:11,559 way identical to the divine essence? There is a sense in which essence and 1817 02:27:11,719 --> 02:27:16,159 energy are identical in the sense in which they differ, as is clearly shown 1818 02:27:16,200 --> 02:27:18,959 in the writings of the Fathers. Well, they're identical in the sense that 1819 02:27:20,479 --> 02:27:22,959 the same God is the one acting, and he's fully present in every one 1820 02:27:24,000 --> 02:27:26,719 of his energies, as Saint Gregor Palma says, But if you read the 1821 02:27:26,840 --> 02:27:33,239 third Triad, the whole third triad is dedicated to answering this question. So 1822 02:27:33,399 --> 02:27:37,799 while I would say that God is fully present in every one of his energies, 1823 02:27:37,479 --> 02:27:43,319 and the energies are really distinct amongst themselves, pal Musk calls them in 1824 02:27:43,559 --> 02:27:48,719 the third triad section twenty five various realities. And that's why the Tomos and 1825 02:27:48,799 --> 02:27:52,120 other documents will say that you have to say there are different realities. You 1826 02:27:52,200 --> 02:27:56,200 can't identify these realities, and so thus the realities are not identical amongst themselves, 1827 02:27:56,719 --> 02:28:00,920 even though God is fully present in every one of those energies. But 1828 02:28:01,040 --> 02:28:05,040 also the energies proceed from the nature of God. But Palamas is very explicit 1829 02:28:05,280 --> 02:28:11,440 that the super essential energy or essence of God transcends the energies. So I 1830 02:28:11,479 --> 02:28:15,600 would say that we can't say that they are identical to the divine essence. 1831 02:28:16,680 --> 02:28:20,680 And also I think the doctor Pinos thesis that's the same thing. Yeah, 1832 02:28:20,760 --> 02:28:24,879 I mean that's pretty much fast. Well, one thing I'd say to you, 1833 02:28:26,000 --> 02:28:28,920 can it kind of does kind of that issue of like quantity, because 1834 02:28:28,360 --> 02:28:35,000 you know, there's when people in medieval times talk about like a distinction, 1835 02:28:35,120 --> 02:28:39,680 and they talk about like a real distinction or a virtual or conceptual distinction, 1836 02:28:41,000 --> 02:28:43,959 and this sort of thing. I mean a lot of times what they have 1837 02:28:43,079 --> 02:28:46,760 in mind is like, are these things that could be separated out, Like 1838 02:28:48,479 --> 02:28:52,440 two horses are really distinct, Like they're right, the gallon and a half 1839 02:28:52,559 --> 02:28:58,000 of water, those gallons aren't. Yeah, they mean distinction in the sense 1840 02:28:58,079 --> 02:29:03,920 of composition and separability. Yeah, and right, So now that the energies 1841 02:29:03,959 --> 02:29:07,920 are not distinct in the sense of composition, God has no parts. He's 1842 02:29:07,959 --> 02:29:11,559 not composite. Right, It's not like you could pull apart the essence and 1843 02:29:11,719 --> 02:29:15,799 have it without the energies or vice versa or something like. There. In 1844 02:29:15,959 --> 02:29:22,000 some sense, they're kind of a unity. But but they're not. They're 1845 02:29:22,040 --> 02:29:26,479 not identical in the sense we would use that term like they're just like they're 1846 02:29:26,559 --> 02:29:31,120 just names for the same thing or something like Samuel Clemens and Mark Twain or 1847 02:29:31,159 --> 02:29:35,280 something. Right, But I mean it would also be impossible if you read 1848 02:29:35,319 --> 02:29:39,120 one hundred for Dy chapters, I think it's ninety eight to one oh three. 1849 02:29:39,600 --> 02:29:43,719 He actually does a bunch of reductile arguments where he shows that you could 1850 02:29:43,799 --> 02:29:50,719 not equate divine fore knowledge and divine providence with eternal glory if you were if 1851 02:29:50,719 --> 02:29:56,319 you equate an eternal glory with divine divine providence, you would have all these 1852 02:29:56,360 --> 02:30:01,680 absurd, you know, originist type positions if you equated them. So again, 1853 02:30:01,760 --> 02:30:05,040 that's the thing that goes all the way back to Basil responding to you 1854 02:30:05,159 --> 02:30:07,600 know, do you know me? It's exactly assured if you identify all these 1855 02:30:09,079 --> 02:30:13,200 different energies. Yeah, Turtle items three dollars. I've never heard this question. 1856 02:30:13,840 --> 02:30:20,719 I don't know the answer. Is Adam damned or Pilot or Nestorius? 1857 02:30:20,840 --> 02:30:26,319 I would say in the Church's view, Adam was pulled out of para shield 1858 02:30:26,399 --> 02:30:31,319 and harrowing of hades. But as far as we know, I mean, 1859 02:30:31,360 --> 02:30:35,159 we're not told the ultimate destiny of people, but the Church has did not 1860 02:30:35,159 --> 02:30:41,360 receive a Nestorius. I don't know Pilot's destiny. We're not told those things. 1861 02:30:41,559 --> 02:30:45,600 But I don't think I don't think there's any reasonably the Nestorius has saved, 1862 02:30:45,879 --> 02:30:48,879 which is odd because the Roman Catholics now allow you can be a Roman 1863 02:30:48,959 --> 02:30:56,600 Catholic and you can revere Nestorias, so changing doctrine in my view there bm 1864 02:30:56,680 --> 02:31:00,479 Max nineteen sixty six, fifteen dollars, great video. Thank you, BMX, 1865 02:31:00,520 --> 02:31:03,920 appreciate that. Constantine five dollars. Would you say that the Philly oquay 1866 02:31:05,040 --> 02:31:09,639 led Calvin into the argument that the sun is autotheos? Doctor Branson, don't 1867 02:31:09,680 --> 02:31:18,040 forget that Target doesn't offer gift wrapping in store. Ah, I know who 1868 02:31:18,120 --> 02:31:26,680 that is anyway, someone from my from my parish who I I figure that 1869 02:31:26,799 --> 02:31:33,959 was why. So the question is what did the Philly oquay lead Calvin to 1870 02:31:35,159 --> 02:31:41,920 say that Christ is auto theos? Yeah? I uh so, I mean, 1871 02:31:41,959 --> 02:31:46,360 I guess I would as I understand that. I think the immediate sort 1872 02:31:46,399 --> 02:31:52,000 of reason that Calvin got led into that was his like his debates with Unitarians 1873 02:31:52,520 --> 02:31:58,600 at the time, and so so a lot of Unitarians, uh, in 1874 02:31:58,719 --> 02:32:03,760 that period and on up to today. What they would do is they would 1875 02:32:03,840 --> 02:32:09,239 kind of argue like, well, the aseity is part of the divine nature, 1876 02:32:09,600 --> 02:32:13,840 or the divine nature is asse or whatever. So we see the Muslims 1877 02:32:13,920 --> 02:32:18,399 arguing today, Yeah, yeah, so that's kind of their anti trinitarian argument 1878 02:32:18,399 --> 02:32:20,319 as well as the sun's not asse, it doesn't really have the divine nature. 1879 02:32:20,440 --> 02:32:24,079 And so I think what Calvin was doing was kind of trying to respond 1880 02:32:24,520 --> 02:32:31,040 to them in a way. I I do sort of view it as I 1881 02:32:31,120 --> 02:32:37,840 mean, I guess like partly it's it's a like metaphysically serious thing, but 1882 02:32:39,000 --> 02:32:41,879 partly sort of a verbal thing, like he wants to have a way to 1883 02:32:41,000 --> 02:32:46,079 say that the sun is asse or at least like at least in the sense 1884 02:32:46,200 --> 02:32:50,600 like in some sense that would you know, respond to their arguments or whatever. 1885 02:32:52,319 --> 02:32:56,159 But I mean maybe in a more in a more remote sort of sense, 1886 02:32:56,959 --> 02:33:03,559 the like some of the motivation, I guess a big part of the 1887 02:33:03,600 --> 02:33:09,159 motivation for the Philioquay in the West was this idea that that the procession of 1888 02:33:09,200 --> 02:33:13,319 the Holy Spirit is something that happens kind of in virtue of the divine nature, 1889 02:33:15,079 --> 02:33:18,840 and so if the father and sons share the same nature, they need 1890 02:33:18,920 --> 02:33:24,319 to both spirit the Spirit. So I think kind of the way that the 1891 02:33:24,440 --> 02:33:33,399 West conceptualizes all of that, it is kind of tied together. So I 1892 02:33:33,520 --> 02:33:39,479 mean maybe in some kind of you know, general like you had connected generally. 1893 02:33:41,799 --> 02:33:43,399 Thank you for that temple hogro ten dollars, Doctor Branson. Do you 1894 02:33:43,479 --> 02:33:48,600 think that the Roman Catholic doctor of the Philioquay caused the distortion of energies such 1895 02:33:48,719 --> 02:33:54,559 that they had to adopt later innovations that led to things like beativic vision. 1896 02:33:54,079 --> 02:33:58,280 The energy has become dimmer because of the subordination of the Holy Spirit in the 1897 02:33:58,799 --> 02:34:03,079 progress of Roman Cavolic theology. After I think she's saying, after like Lyons 1898 02:34:03,120 --> 02:34:11,799 and Florence. Yeah, So one thing I should say is I should point 1899 02:34:11,799 --> 02:34:18,600 out to people my my area of expertise is really philosophy, and I kind 1900 02:34:18,639 --> 02:34:20,799 of I work on the Capit Ocean, so a lot of this sort of 1901 02:34:20,879 --> 02:34:24,079 later stuff I just let people know, like that's not my my expertise. 1902 02:34:24,200 --> 02:34:31,959 But I think that it's an interesting question though, whether the philioque sort of 1903 02:34:31,120 --> 02:34:39,360 leads to distorted thinking about the divine energies, or if it's distorted thinking about 1904 02:34:39,360 --> 02:34:46,520 the divine energies that leads to the philioque. So uh, I mean the 1905 02:34:46,559 --> 02:34:52,360 reason I say that is, you know, you get this argument that the 1906 02:34:52,440 --> 02:34:58,680 spiration of the Holy Spirit basically is a divine energy, yeah, and that 1907 02:34:58,799 --> 02:35:03,399 that's just kind of identical to the divine nature or whatever. And then you 1908 02:35:03,959 --> 02:35:09,680 so then it has to be shared with the son and and also a lot 1909 02:35:09,760 --> 02:35:13,600 of this stuff, you know, like we were talking about before, about 1910 02:35:13,680 --> 02:35:16,559 you know, energetic processions, like a lot of the things that the capit 1911 02:35:16,600 --> 02:35:22,840 Oceians and others say that maybe sound like the Holy Spirit proceeds hypostatically from the 1912 02:35:24,000 --> 02:35:30,520 sun really is about the divine energies, And if you kind of collapse that 1913 02:35:30,639 --> 02:35:33,600 distinction, then you just kind of have to say, well, what's going 1914 02:35:33,639 --> 02:35:37,120 on here? Is he coming from the father or the son or both or 1915 02:35:37,200 --> 02:35:41,360 what? So I think it might be the kind of the collapsing of the 1916 02:35:41,559 --> 02:35:46,360 essence and energy that leads to these problems of not being able to figure out 1917 02:35:46,399 --> 02:35:50,479 what the church fathers or the earlier fathers were saying. For those that are 1918 02:35:52,200 --> 02:35:54,440 if you're reading, if it's hard to get a hold, I think the 1919 02:35:54,520 --> 02:35:58,200 Papadocus book is out of prince, but some people might have a hard time 1920 02:35:58,280 --> 02:36:03,520 getting it to find it on our kenya okay or whatever yets. There's another 1921 02:36:03,639 --> 02:36:07,360 Papa Dooca's book that goes through the same stuff that we're talking about, which 1922 02:36:07,440 --> 02:36:11,159 is the one that he wrote with Mayandorff. That's good. And when he 1923 02:36:11,200 --> 02:36:16,760 gets up into the sections talking about the eternal manifestation and all of that, 1924 02:36:18,239 --> 02:36:22,319 he's got a really good section where he talks about what he calls the triple 1925 02:36:22,479 --> 02:36:26,200 distinction, right that by these these Palomite synods, And when Gregory's teaching is 1926 02:36:26,239 --> 02:36:31,600 accepted in twelve eighty five, the idea of the triple distinction is there is 1927 02:36:31,680 --> 02:36:37,520 solidified and that's meaning the stinction between nature, person, and energy. So 1928 02:36:37,600 --> 02:36:39,799 that triple distinction, which is already in book three of John Damascus, in 1929 02:36:39,920 --> 02:36:43,120 chapter fifteen of on the Orthodox Faith, Nature, person, will, energy, 1930 02:36:43,120 --> 02:36:46,760 and then even says the effect of the energy. These are all real 1931 02:36:46,840 --> 02:36:52,040 distinctions. Those things really guard against any of the confusions that you see in 1932 02:36:52,159 --> 02:36:56,040 Roman Catholic theology. And keep in mind that a lot of these things you 1933 02:36:56,079 --> 02:37:00,920 could source in Denzinger. But literally, if you read literally got in the 1934 02:37:00,959 --> 02:37:05,319 first thirty forty pages when he outlines what the dogmas are, I mean, 1935 02:37:05,360 --> 02:37:09,200 he goes so far as to say the Holy Spirit proceeds from the will of 1936 02:37:09,319 --> 02:37:11,399 the Father and the Son. Yeah, so, I mean it gets really 1937 02:37:13,120 --> 02:37:20,479 convoluted. I think Temple hat girl to make the point that it's Doctor Chirrard 1938 02:37:20,600 --> 02:37:26,399 in his book Church Papasy Schism, he basically argues that the Phillioqui doctrine was 1939 02:37:26,600 --> 02:37:35,239 tied to a kind of ignoring or forgetting of the role the Holy Spirit in 1940 02:37:35,360 --> 02:37:39,559 the church, which becomes replaced by the office of the Pope, and so 1941 02:37:39,680 --> 02:37:45,040 then it becomes a kind of a situation where instead of the imminent life of 1942 02:37:45,120 --> 02:37:48,600 the Holy Spirit and the imminent energies of the Spirit in the church, it's 1943 02:37:48,680 --> 02:37:52,760 like now we're looking to the Oracle of Rome, and that is connected to 1944 02:37:54,319 --> 02:37:56,879 the rise of the Beatzovic vision at the same time, because you no longer 1945 02:37:56,959 --> 02:38:03,399 have the eminent divine experience of God, it's created effects and then you have 1946 02:38:03,520 --> 02:38:07,559 the experience of God only in the afterlife. And so I think the things 1947 02:38:07,600 --> 02:38:11,360 are connected in terms of the developments. Yeah, I think that's it. 1948 02:38:11,319 --> 02:38:16,840 That's a good point to emphasize that. Yeah. I mean, for for 1949 02:38:18,079 --> 02:38:22,079 Orthodoxy, it's just you will never see the divine essence, but you can 1950 02:38:22,120 --> 02:38:28,600 see the divine energies even in this life. And that's what prophecy is like 1951 02:38:28,680 --> 02:38:33,719 when Isaiah saw God sitting on a throne, I mean that was Christ, 1952 02:38:33,879 --> 02:38:39,959 but he's it's it's the energies of God, right that you that you're you 1953 02:38:39,040 --> 02:38:43,799 know, I mean, just a revelation is a divine action, right, 1954 02:38:43,840 --> 02:38:48,040 it is a divine energy. But yeah, if you collapse that distinction, 1955 02:38:50,920 --> 02:38:52,440 then you just have to say, well, what I mean, can you 1956 02:38:54,159 --> 02:39:00,719 can you see the divine nature? No? I mean Aquinas says, you 1957 02:39:00,799 --> 02:39:03,719 only see the creative effects in this life, right, hence the Yeah, 1958 02:39:05,639 --> 02:39:09,120 yeah, he says that too. That's why he has to make all the 1959 02:39:09,200 --> 02:39:13,840 theophanies just be created right, yeah, and you also in the City of 1960 02:39:13,879 --> 02:39:18,680 God he has a section on beativic vision as well, So yeah, I 1961 02:39:18,719 --> 02:39:20,920 think there is definitely connection and you only get the vision in the afterlife, 1962 02:39:22,000 --> 02:39:26,079 correct. I just think that's the I can't I don't know why people don't 1963 02:39:26,120 --> 02:39:28,239 talk about this more, and I just feel like that's the it's just so 1964 02:39:28,479 --> 02:39:35,360 problematic as far as our epistemology about theology, like how do you really know 1965 02:39:35,479 --> 02:39:39,120 anything about God? I talk about that all yeah, well no, no, 1966 02:39:39,280 --> 02:39:41,959 I mean, yeah, debates, I talk about it a lot. 1967 02:39:43,680 --> 02:39:46,399 I mean, just like I guess I'm thinking about in academia, like oh, 1968 02:39:46,479 --> 02:39:50,440 in academia, yeah, eithan philosophy articles or something like this that you 1969 02:39:50,639 --> 02:39:54,319 you don't see. I mean, I guess it's just because people have this 1970 02:39:54,559 --> 02:39:58,399 theology that doesn't work, so they don't want to talk about it. But 1971 02:39:58,079 --> 02:40:01,840 it's just it's just seems so an obvious. I mean, it's such an 1972 02:40:01,840 --> 02:40:05,200 obvious problem, like because it's I mean, it's like, oh, well 1973 02:40:05,040 --> 02:40:09,239 that's okay, just divine revelation. But it's like, well, what's you 1974 02:40:09,360 --> 02:40:13,840 get in the divine revelation from Gabriel or something like even even Muslims, you 1975 02:40:13,920 --> 02:40:16,280 know, like have this. I mean, it's it's like you can you 1976 02:40:16,360 --> 02:40:20,040 can feel the problem, like this whole the whole like night journey thing. 1977 02:40:20,399 --> 02:40:24,600 It's like not, I think that's not actually in the Qur'an, right, 1978 02:40:24,680 --> 02:40:26,959 it's just kind of I mean there's some hints about it. Yeah, but 1979 02:40:28,360 --> 02:40:31,280 I think it's just like you kind of feel this, like, well, 1980 02:40:31,319 --> 02:40:35,600 if he's if if Mohammed's just getting everything from Gabriel, like how do we 1981 02:40:35,639 --> 02:40:39,440 know Gabriel know Like how does Gabriel know this? Yeah? Exactly, it's 1982 02:40:39,479 --> 02:40:43,399 just moves a problem backup stuff. And and if you think about natural theology 1983 02:40:43,479 --> 02:40:46,559 too, well, wait a minute. So in natural theology, I'm looking 1984 02:40:46,600 --> 02:40:50,959 at the created order and I'm deducing uh, you know, the first cause 1985 02:40:52,040 --> 02:40:54,520 and the likeness of the first cause and all this kind of stuff. But 1986 02:40:54,639 --> 02:41:01,520 what is it exactly that distinguishes supernatural revelation from now theology given the fact that 1987 02:41:01,760 --> 02:41:07,200 even supernatural relation is said to still just be creative effects that I'm experiencing. 1988 02:41:07,639 --> 02:41:11,639 So what's the difference here? And I think Palamas calls out barleym Mona. 1989 02:41:11,719 --> 02:41:13,760 He says that if you're consistent with that, it would just lead you to 1990 02:41:13,799 --> 02:41:16,399 atheism because you never get to the thing itself. There's always a created veil 1991 02:41:18,840 --> 02:41:22,639 of causes between you and the thing itself. You know, people in philosophy 1992 02:41:22,680 --> 02:41:24,559 we talk about this like people talk about the veil of perception. That's a 1993 02:41:24,600 --> 02:41:28,639 veil in like John Locke, and it just seems like the same sort of 1994 02:41:28,719 --> 02:41:31,239 thing. It's like, you've just okay, now you've got this veil of 1995 02:41:31,360 --> 02:41:35,600 perception problem. It's like the phenomenon noumena. How do you ever get to 1996 02:41:35,680 --> 02:41:41,959 that God in the newmana realm exactly? Who's so like, Okay, we 1997 02:41:41,040 --> 02:41:43,760 can get there, but only in the afterlife, only in the afterlife. 1998 02:41:43,879 --> 02:41:46,680 Well, but how do we know we even get there? Only in the 1999 02:41:46,760 --> 02:41:50,639 afterlife? If if we were told this by creative effects in this life? 2000 02:41:52,079 --> 02:41:54,760 Who sewed the button? One dollar? Jay, would you sit down with 2001 02:41:54,639 --> 02:42:00,280 Tim for an unlimited six hour conversation? Well that would be limited that if 2002 02:42:00,319 --> 02:42:03,520 it's six hours. Did you see Tim's wife bet five thousand dollars that he 2003 02:42:03,559 --> 02:42:09,159 would never convert to Orthodoxy. I don't know if we're trying to work all 2004 02:42:09,239 --> 02:42:16,079 this out with We had the Italy pilgrimage between Orthodox Italy in November in my 2005 02:42:16,239 --> 02:42:18,559 church, so we I don't know how soon we're going to be able to 2006 02:42:18,639 --> 02:42:22,840 organize the situation with Tim in Nashville, but I don't know what what kind 2007 02:42:22,840 --> 02:42:26,079 of a setup way. It probably won't be six hours, but we'll see. 2008 02:42:26,479 --> 02:42:31,719 We'll see. Pray for Tim. Joseph cash three dollars. How would 2009 02:42:31,760 --> 02:42:37,319 you lead to the respond to the argument that real distinction between essence and energy 2010 02:42:37,399 --> 02:42:41,159 means that there's two gods? I would reply the exact same way that Basil 2011 02:42:41,840 --> 02:42:48,639 and the Palm and Palamas responds to this by saying that the distinction between father 2012 02:42:48,799 --> 02:42:52,680 and son is just as real as the distinction between essence and energy. And 2013 02:42:52,760 --> 02:42:56,879 so if father and son in spirit don't lead to tritheism, then distinction between 2014 02:42:56,959 --> 02:43:03,159 essence and energy doesn't lead to uh ditheism. Any Do you have any comment 2015 02:43:03,239 --> 02:43:07,000 on that? Father or father? Brandson? Doctor Brandson? Yeah, father 2016 02:43:09,159 --> 02:43:13,760 important distinction, Yeah, no, same thing. You know that that also 2017 02:43:13,879 --> 02:43:18,639 kind of gets into that issue of divisibility, right, So if you don't 2018 02:43:18,680 --> 02:43:24,280 think that the essence and the energies are separable, right, then they're not 2019 02:43:24,840 --> 02:43:31,440 too in that ancient kind of way of thinking. But also I've always thought 2020 02:43:31,440 --> 02:43:35,760 that was a weird ideas, because like, I've never understood how, never 2021 02:43:35,799 --> 02:43:39,479 really understood how that would give you two god. Well, the argument is 2022 02:43:39,879 --> 02:43:45,399 working on the assumption that real distinctions entail composition and division. And again, 2023 02:43:45,440 --> 02:43:48,600 if you go back to the Kappadocians responding to you an Omius, they just 2024 02:43:48,680 --> 02:43:52,920 don't accept that assumption. Yeah, no, that that's exactly what I mean 2025 02:43:52,959 --> 02:43:58,280 about the separability. You don't. Yeah, but but even I mean I 2026 02:43:58,319 --> 02:44:03,399 don't. Yeah, I've never understood how like an essence and energy give you 2027 02:44:03,520 --> 02:44:07,879 two gods. Anyway, Well, I think they're thinking of it like it's 2028 02:44:07,000 --> 02:44:13,040 a lower they think of it like it's a lower essence. Yeah, and 2029 02:44:13,159 --> 02:44:16,239 it's like, no, energies are the manifestation of essence. They're the actions, 2030 02:44:16,479 --> 02:44:20,319 they're the operations, they're the powers. All of these are different terms 2031 02:44:20,440 --> 02:44:26,639 used by Palamos and the Cappadocians for this constantine three dollars. I do not 2032 02:44:26,760 --> 02:44:30,319 mean to chide you, doctor Branson. I'm just teasing you. Thank you 2033 02:44:30,440 --> 02:44:37,360 for answering my question. All right, I've got doctor Bo's website. They're 2034 02:44:37,600 --> 02:44:41,799 linked, and you can watch his lectures over there, and I'm sure he'll 2035 02:44:41,879 --> 02:44:46,920 have his book up there for sale or links or whatever when it when it 2036 02:44:46,000 --> 02:44:50,280 comes out, I'll post the links for it. For the Four Views book 2037 02:44:50,360 --> 02:44:54,360 that's coming out with William Lane, Craig Dale, Tuggy, doctor Branson and 2038 02:44:54,600 --> 02:45:01,159 who was the other guy? Anything you want to leave us with, Yeah, 2039 02:45:01,159 --> 02:45:05,239 I usually just let let everyone know that that'll We're just now writing all 2040 02:45:05,280 --> 02:45:11,760 of our final responses and everything, so probably it won't be published till like 2041 02:45:11,799 --> 02:45:16,360 the beginning of next year or something like that. I think through whipfin Stock. 2042 02:45:16,600 --> 02:45:18,920 But anyway, so but yeah, no, that's all I have. 2043 02:45:20,280 --> 02:45:24,920 I appreciate coming on. It's always fun to talk. Absolutely, thank you 2044 02:45:26,000 --> 02:45:28,680 so much. I've learned so much from you, got so many great book 2045 02:45:28,760 --> 02:45:33,879 recommendations, and and you're you're really uh an amazing analytical thinker, and I 2046 02:45:33,920 --> 02:45:37,040 appreciate that. Combining that with patristics, it's just a rare gift. So 2047 02:45:37,600 --> 02:45:41,760 thank you so much for your uh, for your wisdom and your knowledge, 2048 02:45:41,840 --> 02:45:46,159 and for giving us so many good references and arguments. I want to remind 2049 02:45:46,200 --> 02:45:48,079 everybody too that you can head over to chalk dot com, that is this 2050 02:45:48,200 --> 02:45:54,479 show sponsor. 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